PR2P22  GRAY,  Henry  D. 
A2G73     The  original  vers: en  of 
Love's  labour's  lest. 


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THE  ORIGINAL  VERSION  OF 

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WITH  A  CONJECTURE  AS  TO 

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jy 


BY 

HENRY  DAVID  GRAY 

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'MOVE'S  LABOUR'S  LOST" 


WITH   A  CONJECTURE  AS  TO 

LOVE'S  LABOUR'S  WON" 


4  i, 


BY 

HENRY  DAVID  GRAY 

*  i 

Associate  Professor  of  English 


PUBLISHED  BY  THE   UNIVERSITY 
STANFORD    UNIVERSITY,    CALIFORNIA 

1918 


STANFORD   UNIVERSITY 
PRESS 


CONTENTS 

Page 

Preface    7 

Introduction    9 

A  Key  to  the  Text  of  the  Original  Version  of  Love's  Labour's  Lost....  21 

Supplementary  Notes  23 

A  Conjecture  as  to  Love's  Labour's  Won 41 


THE  ORIGINAL  VERSION  OF 

"LOVE'S  LABOUR'S  LOST" 


"It  would  be  without  doubt  a  pleasure  to  any  man,  curious 
in  things  of  this  kind,  to  see  and  know  what  was  the  first  essay 
of  a  fancy  like  Shakespeare's."  -Nicholas  Rowe. 


PREFACE 

Althou^^h  it  has  always  been  recognized  that  Love's  Labour's  Lost 
contains  a  certain  amount  of  work  which  does  not  belong  to  Shakespeare's 
first  period,  yet  the  play  as  it  stands  is  regularly  taken  to  illustrate  his 
characteristics  at  the  very  start  of  his  dramatic  career,  and  passages  from 
the  play  are  indiscriminately  cited  as  typical  of  his  earliest  manner.  Thus, 
for  example,  Mr.  Garnett,  in  the  Garnett  and  Gosse  English  Literature 
(II,  203),  speaks  of  "A  jest's  prosperity  lies  in  the  ear  Of  him  that  hears 
it"  as  showing  how  sane  a  maxim  Shakespeare  could  formulate  when  he 
first  began  to  write,  and  comments  that  "the  concluding  songs  are  as 
finished  as  anything  he  ever  wrote."  Both  maxim  and  songs  belong  to 
the  revision.  In  like  manner.  Professor  Brander  Matthews,  following  the 
general  tradition,  says  that  Shakespeare  at  the  beginning  of  his  career 
"satirizes  the  affected  foppery  of  speech  which  was  more  or  less  prevalent 
at  the  time"  (Shakespeare  as  a  Playzvright,  p.  69).  But  the  satirizing 
comes  in  the  revision ;  the  original  version  shows  only  the  influence  of 
Lyly.  What  is  more  serious  is  that  careful  scholars  often  judge  the  patch- 
work structure  of  the  play  as  marking  Shakespeare's  limitations  when  he 
began  to  write  (see,  for  instance.  Professor  Baker's  The  Development  of 
Shakespeare  as  a  Dramatist),  whereas  the  early  comedy,  relieved  of  its 
"patchwork  structure,"  shows  an  overexactitude  of  symmetry  and  a  most 
careful  attention  to  dramatic  details.  Again,  we  have  grown  accustomed 
to  consider  the  characters  of  Holofernes  and  Nathaniel,  the  formlessness 
of  the  masque  of  the  Worthies,  and  the  sudden  introduction  of  a  deeper 
motive  with  the  news  of  the  Princess's  father's  death  as  anticipations  of 
Shakespeare's  later  work,  when,  as  I  hope  to  show,  all  these  belong  to  the 
later  date. 

The  value  of  restoring  what  is,  in  a  sense,  a  lost  play  of  Shakespeare 
(though  lost  only  in  its  own  overcoat)  is  not  alone  that  we  may  rightly 
consider  his  characteristics  at  the  start,  but  that  we  may  observe  precisely 
how  he  revised  his  work  at  a  later  date.  In  this  instance  we  must  admit 
that  the  revision  was  hastily  and  carelessly  done,  and  consisted  almost 
wholly  in  engrafting  upon  his  early  comedy  such  new  features  as  would 
be  most  likely  to  please  the  sentimental  and  pageant-loving  queen ;  and 
this  cannot  be  taken  as  typical  of  his  method.  But  what  Shakespeare  did 
in  any  instance  is  of  the  greatest  consequence. 


8  PREFACE 

I  have  attempted  in  this  essay  to  furnish  a  key  to  the  original  version 
of  Lore's  Labour's  Lost,  so  that  anyone  interested  may  mark  the  passages 
in  his  own  working  edition  of  the  play.  I  have  attempted  to  justify  my 
conclusions  in  a  general  introduction,  saving  more  detailed  considerations 
for  supplementary  notes.  In  the  latter  will  be  found  also  such  textual 
emendations  as  I  care  to  suggest.  I  am  indebted  for  friendly  comments 
to  my  colleagues,  Professor  R.  M.  Alden  and  Professor  W.  D.  Briggs. 

H.  D.  G. 

Stanford  University 
March,  1918 


INTRODUCTION 

Love's  Labour's  Lost  is  now  by  common  consent  regarded  as  Shake- 
speare's earliest  comedy  and  the  earliest  play  wholly  of  his  writing.  Its 
date  is  usually  set  as  not  later  than  1591,  when  Shakespeare  was  twenty- 
seven  years  old,  and  much  of  the  play  seems  to  indicate  a  younger  author- 
ship than  that.  The  First  Quarto,  1598,  contains  on  the  title  page  the 
words,  "As  it  was  presented  before  her  Highnes  this  last  Christmas. 
Newly  corrected  and  augmented.  By  W.  Shakespeare."  If  the  play  was 
published  within  three  months  after  its  performance,  the  Christmas  re- 
ferred to  would  be  that  of  1598;  otherwise  it  would  be  that  of  1597.  For 
convenience  I  shall  take  1597  as  the  more  probable  year  for  the  additions 
and  1590  for  the  original  version  of  the  piece,  though  my  argument  does 
not  involve  the  exact  date  of  either  writing.^ 

The  commentators  who  have  noted  the  passages  and  scenes  which 
most  clearly  show  Shakespeare's  maturer  work  have  been  in  substantial 
agreement, — excepting,  of  course,  the  too  ingenious  Fleay;  their  differ- 
ences have  been  chiefly  in  including  less  or  more.  They  have  all  observed 
that  the  "augmentations"  must  have  come  chiefly  (if  not  wholly)  in  the 
last  two  acts,  since  these  acts  are  by  far  the  longest;-  and  that  the  "cor- 
rections" also  must  have  come  in  these  two  acts,  since  they  are  as  a  whole 
so  far  superior  to  the  first  three.  All  have  noted — no  careful  reader  could 
avoid  noting — that  there  are  two  short  passages  (one  in  act  IV  and  the 
other  in  act  V)  which  are  repeated  and  amplified  in  the  lines  which  imme- 


1  The  earliest  date  we  can  select  for  the  first  writing  of  this  play  is  probably 
the  true  one,  and  our  problem  would  be  only  how  early  Shakespeare  could  have 
become  acquainted  with  Lyly's  Endymion  and  with  the  names  which  he  takes  over 
from  contemporary  French  history.  The  youth  of  the  author  becomes  more  appar- 
ent with  the  removal  of  the  1597  passages,  which,  by  attraction,  have  probably  led 
us  to  date  the  play  too  late.  Indeed,  the  drama  as  I  have  here  set  it  forth  sounds 
more  like  seventeen  than  twenty-seven.  The  Russian  incident  which  gave  point  to 
V.  ii,  78-264  occurred  in  1584;  the  Endymion  was  1586;  the  names  of  Biron  and 
the  others  may  have  become  fairly  familiar  shortly  after  this,  and  would  not  have 
been  appropriately  used  as  they  are  here  if  the  civil  war  in  France  had  made  these 
men  distinct  historical  personalities.  On  the  evidence  of  style,  I  should  dispute  any 
date  after  1588,  when  Shakespeare  was  twenty- four  years  old. 

2  Sir  Sidney  Lee  thinks  the  disproportion  a  fault  of  the  original  writing  and 
that  the  revision  even  in  these  acts  "can  hardly  have  touched  their  main  drifts." 
(Introduction  to  L.  L.  L.  in  the  Caxton  Shakespeare,  p.  xxxiii.) 


10  THE   ORIGINAL   VERSION    OF 

diately  follow  them,  indicating  unmistakably^  that  these  two  passages  were 
revised  and  that  a  portion  of  the  original  version  was  retained  in  the  quarto 
merely  by  oversight.  Beyond  these  rather  palpable  deductions  most  critics 
do  not  go  with  any  assurance.  Spedding,  substantially  followed  by  Furni- 
vall,*  indicated  what  he  thought  were  the  added  portions,  and  with  most 
of  his  conclusions  I  find  myself  in  agreement.  But  Spedding's  was  an 
esthetic  criticism  merely.  In  making  a  more  detailed  and  scientific  ex- 
amination of  the  problem  I  have  been  forced  to  depart  somewhat  from  his 
conclusions  and  to  include  among  the  additions  of  1597  much  that  has 
hitherto  remained  unquestioned. 

It  is  of  course  from  the  two  repeated  passages  that  one  must 
take  his  start.  The  first  occurs  in  act  IV,  scene  iii,  where 
lines  296-304  are  repeated  and  expanded  in  318-354.^  This 
single  and  sustained  burst  of  poetry  is  the  first  passage  to 
remove  from  the  1590  version.  In  this  same  scene,  which  we 
know  that  Shakespeare  did  revise,  at  line  221,  beginning  "Who  sees 
the  heavenly  Rosaline,"  we  come  upon  another  extended  passage  which 
has  been  generally  recognized  as  beyond  Shakespeare's  powers  in  1590. 
It  forms  a  more  startling  contrast  to  the  lines  immediately  before  it  than 
we  ever  find  in  a  play  which  shows  consecutive  work.  There  is  an  easy 
mastery  and  a  fullness  of  tone  in  these  quatrains  which  place  them  at  once 
with  the  work  Avhich  Shakespeare  did  after  he  had  attained  a  fuller  com- 
mand over  his  poetic  faculties.  Fine  passages  abound  in  Shakespeare's 
earliest  dramas ;  but  there  is  no  instance  in  them  of  such  careless  ease  in 
the  command  of  meter  and  imagery  as  we  find  here. 

Now  the  passage  under  consideration  extends  from  line  220  to  281 
without  interruption,  and  obviously  belongs  to  a  single  writing.  There 
is  an  organic  completeness  in  it  which  seems  to  me  to  make  wholly  im- 
possible such  a  conjecture  as  Dr.  Furnivall's,  that  because  so  many  "con- 
secutive fours  or  alternates"  are  set  in  a  row  some  of  them  must  belong 
to  "the  first  cast  of  the  play."  Toward  the  end,  the  inspiration  seems  to 
have  exhausted  itself ;  the  work  becomes  perfunctory,  and  ends  in  a 
quatrain  of  mere  indecency.  This  is  the  passage  which  furnishes  us  with 
the  often  quoted  analogy  to  the  "Dark  Lady"  sonnets ;  and  there  is  one 
line  in  the  play  which  clearly  indicates  that  Shakespeare  did  not  think  of 


3  Unmistakably,  it  would  seem ;  and  yet  Knight  goes  astray  even  here.  See 
note  on  the  passage. 

^  Furnivall  quotes  Spedding  in  full  in  the  Introduction  to  the  Leopold  Shake- 
speare, and,  with  his  own  comment  added,  in  the  Forewords  to  the  Griggs  fac- 
simile of  the  First  Quarto. 

^  My  scene  and  line  numbering  in  this  Introduction  and  in  the  notes  refers 
to  Professor  Neilson's  text,  which  conforms  to  the  Globe  edition. 


<< 


love's  labour's  lost"  11 


Rosaline  in  1590  as  answering  to  the  description  he  gives  of  her  in  1597. 
"A  whitely  wanton  with  a  velvet  brow"  (III,  i,  198),  belongs  to  the 
earlier  version ;  and  the  many  suggested  emendations  of  the  word 
"whitely"  are  therefore  quite  gratuitous.  These  characterizations  of  the 
appearance  of  the  heroine,  as  a  white-cheeked  brunette  in  1590  and  as 
dark-hued  as  well  as  dark-eyed  in  1597,  must  not  of  course  be  confused 
with  the  conventional  praise  of  any  beauty  in  terms  of  "white"  and  dis- 
praise in  terms  of  "black,"  which  we  naturally  find  here  as  elsewhere. 
Biron  is  dilating  on  Rosaline's  "complexion,"  on  her  "fair  cheek,"  just 
before  he  admits  and  praises  her  very  blackness ;  and  Katherine,  who  is 
distinctly  characterized  as  "red"  and  "golden,"  is  blandly  referred  to  by 
Biron  himself  as  a  "raven."  We  cannot  therefore  determine  anything  as 
to  the  two  versions  from  other  references,  such  as  those  to  Rosaline's 
"white  hand"  (III,  i.  169:  IV,  ii.  136;  V,  ii,  230  and  411),  nor  to  her 
being  called  a  "beauty  dark"  (\\  ii,  20),  for  these  are  either  conventional 
or  mean  no  more  than  that  Rosaline  was  pictured  in  the  first  version  d.i>  a 
brunette.  The  inconsistency  which  exists  between  the  "whitely  wanton" 
and  the  "Dark  Lady"  passage  only  indicates  what  everything  about  the 
revision  will  substantiate, — that  that  revision  was  done  very  hastily  and 
with  no  thought  of  maintaining  a  strict  consistency  with  the  earlier 
writing.  Remembering  his  heroine  as  a  brunette,  Shakespeare  wrote  on 
in  1597  in  the  vein  in  which  he  w^as  then  writing  his  "Dark  Lady"  sonnets ; 
for  the  analogy  is  too  close  to  permit  us  to  believe  that  any  great  interval 
separated  them.  Only  one  or  two  of  the  most  extreme  theorists  have  been 
able  to  believe  that  the  "Dark  Lady"  sonnets  could  have  been  written  as 
early  as  1591  ;  and  if  not  then,  both  the  sonnets  and  the  revision  of  the 
play  must  have  come  together  in  1597.*' 

Toward  the  close  of  this  scene  in  which  we  have  found  one  passage 
surely  inserted  in  1597  and  another  which  looks  unmistakably  in  the  same 
direction,  we  come  upon  a  few  lines  (370-380)  which  at  least  demand  in- 
spection. Let  one  read  the  passage  318-354,  redolent  of  the  high  ecstasy 
of  love,  then  290-317,  which  is  by  comparison  so  cold  and  argumentative, 
looking  upon  the  subject  not  with  the  light  of  love  but  selfishly ;  and  then 
220-246,  where  the  revision  again  supplies  the  enthusiasm.  Now  the  end- 
in?  of  the  scene  contains  a  double  motive :  that  of  366-369,  which  carries 
out  the  earlier  attitude,  and  370-380,  which  is  more  in  keeping  with  the 
later  impulse.  The  first  of  these  is  worked  out  in  the  Muscovite  episode ; 
the  second  leads  directly  to  the  ]\Iasque  of  the  Worthies. 


«  Sarrazin  dates  the  Sonnets  1592-96.  and  brings  Lore's  Labour's  Lost  down  to 
1593  in  order  to  account  for  the  parcllelisms  to  Lucrccc  and  Richard  IIL  But  no 
one,  so  far  as  I  know,  has  accepted  his  conclusions. 


12  THE   ORIGINAL   VERSION    OF 

Let  US  now  turn  to  the  second  place  where  we  have  positive  evidence 
that  Shakespeare  added  something  in  the  revision.  The  last  scene  of  the 
play  is  nearly  as  long  as  the  first  three  acts  put  together,  and  the  expan- 
sion of  lines  827-832  into  847-879  must  be  only  a  slight  indication  of  what 
took  place. 

The  main  difference  between  Rosaline's  answer  in  the  extended  pas- 
sage of  the  revision  and  her  earlier  reply,  which  we  may  read  side  by  side 
with  it,  is  that  in  place  of  condemning  Biron  to  his  year's  stay  in  a  hospital 
to  punish  him  for  his  sins  in  general  and,  in  particular,  for  his  having 
broken  his  oath  by  falling  in  love  with  her,  she  now  prescribes  this  penalty 
as  a  cure  for  his  flippancy ;  that  is,  she  supplies  a  serious  motive  in  place 
of  an  arbitrary  whim ;  and  she  holds  out  a  more  definite  promise  of  ac- 
cepting him  in  the  end. 

Now  by  a  careful  examination  of  the  scene,  what  may  we  add  to  the 
earlier  and  what  to  the  later  versions  as  we  find  them  in  Rosaline's  earlier 
and  later  attitudes?  Dumain's  question  is  worded  in  the  same  way  as 
Biron's  in  the  first  draft,  and  Katherine's  reply  is  half  encouraging  and 
half  teasing,  with  again  a  reference  to  the  fact  that  he  is  "forsworn"  in 
loving  her.  It  belongs,  therefore,  to  1590.  It  is  quite  impossible  that 
Dumain  should  have  repeated  Biron's  line,  and  Longaville  not  have  done 
so;  and  Maria's  brief  "At  the  twelvemonth's  end  I'll  change  my  black 
gown  for  a  faithful  friend"  is  obviously  supplied  in  place  of  another  such 
answer  as  her  friends  and  as  the  Princess  herself  must  have  given  in  the 
original  version.  The  black  gown,  as  well  as  the  frank  acceptance,  belongs 
to  the  revision,  just  as  surely  as  Katherine's  light  tone  and  reference  to 
the  broken  oath  belong  to  the  earlier  writing.  The  same  thing  must  hold 
in  the  Princess's  answer  to  the  King.  Lines  800-808,  which  name  the  pen- 
alty, fit  the  tone  and  the  theme  of  the  original  drama;  and  that  the 
Princess  must  have  given  this  as  a  penalty  for  the  broken  oath  is  shown 
by  Rosaline's  original  answer  to  Biron,  "You  must  be  purged  too."  This 
fits  in  with  the  scheme  of  the  play  as  we  find  it  in  the  first  three  acts,  where 
there  is  but  slight  evidence  of  any  revision  nor  room  for  any  additions  of 
importance.  In  her  first  meeting  with  the  King  the  Princess  says  in  refer- 
ence to  the  King's  oath,  "  'Tis  deadly  sin  to  keep  that  oath,  my  lord.  And 
sin  to  break  it"  (II,  i,  105,  106)  ;  and  Cartwright  wonders  at  our  never 
hearing  again  of  these  "remarkable  words."  We  do  hear  again  of  this 
matter.  In  the  first  passage  which  we  examined  (IV,  iii,  290  f )  Biron  (in 
the  earlier  version)  is  offering  some  youthful  sophistry  as  a  "salve  for 
perjury"  to  show  that  their  loving  is  lawful  and  their  "faith  not  torn." 
In  V,  ii,  346-356,  the  Princess  again  prepares  us  for  the  original  denoue- 
ment of  the  piece  by  an  almost  vehement  insistence  upon  her  hatred  of 
perjury,  and  in  line  440  she  returns  more  playfully  to  this  theme.     The 


"love's  labour's  lost"  13 

oath  with  which  the  play  opens,  against  which  Biron  protests,  and  the 
breaking  of  which  is  the  main  theme  of  the  drama,  must  in  the  original 
play  have  been  the  determining  factor  in  the  outcome ;  and  there  is 
enough  of  the  early  version  left  to  show  that  it  was  so.  And  I  take  it  that 
whatever  departs  from  this  plan  and  obscures  this  original  idea  belongs  to 
the  additions  of  1597. 

It  is  evident  that  when  he  came  to  revise  his  early  venture  in  comedy, 
Shakespeare  did  not  not  care  to  preserve  a  fourfold  imposing  of  a  durance 
vile  upon  the  too  eager  and  frivolous  suitors  merely  by  way  of  penalty 
and  test,  however  much  more  truly  that  denouement  might  accord  with 
the  mere  chaff  and  banter  of  the  first  three  acts.  The  young  poet  of  the 
original  version  no  doubt  took  great  joy  in  thus  breaking  away  from  the 
conventional  and  expected  "happy  ending" ;  but  much  as  Shakespeare 
might  have  delighted  in  this  at  twenty-four,  his  older  and  wiser  judgment 
was  not  content  with  it.  In  the  revision,  therefore,  he  felt  it  necessary  to 
supply  a  more  reasonable  motive ;  and  this  motive  was  obviously  provided 
by  the  death  of  the  Princess's  father.  It  is  with  Mercade's  entrance  that 
Spedding  and  others  have  noticed  evidences  of  the  maturer  hand ;  and 
indeed  all  that  concerns  this  introduction  of  a  serious  motif  is  distinctly 
in  the  later  style. 

The  question  then  arises,  how  did  the  play  originally  end  if  the 
present  solution  was  not  offered?  Did  Mercade  not  appear  upon  the 
scene  at  all?  Again,  a  consideration  of  what  the  original  version  pre- 
pared us  for  will  supply  the  answer.  An  apparently  needless  digression  as 
to  the  exact  situation  of  the  Aquitaine  matter  (II,  i,  129-168),  about 
which  the  Princess  has  come  to  Navarre,  has  been  wholly  lost  sight  of, 
except  for  a  line  or  two  which  scarcely  arrest  the  attention.  The  Princess 
says,  in  preparing  for  her  departure  (V,  ii,  748,  749),  "Excuse  me  so, 
coming  too  short  of  thanks  For  my  great  suit  so  easily  obtained."  Such 
a  brief  dismissal  of  an  important  matter  which  Shakespeare  held  to  be  no 
longer  of  any  interest  accords  with  his  failure  to  take  the  least  account  of 
Christopher  Sly  after  the  comedy  of  the  Shrew  had  been  adjusted.  But 
that  Mercade  originally  brought  in  the  "packet"  mentioned  in  II,  i,  164, 
that  the  King  acknowledged  his  error,  and  the  Princess,  her  mission  ended, 
at  once  prepared  to  leave,  is  an  assumption  which  there  is  not  the  faintest 
reason  to  doubt.  The  whole  scheme  of  the  play  prepares  us  for  this,  and 
for  nothing  but  this.  When  the  Princess  would  leave,  the  King  proposes, 
as  of  course  he  still  does  in  the  revision ;  and  the  whole  spirit  of  the 
youthful  comedy  cries  out  "No!  You  made  a  vow  ;  it  wouldn't  do  at  all 
to  break  it!"  But  it  is  a  sin  to  keep  such  an  oath.  And  so — perhaps — 
after  a  year  and  a  day — to  be  spent  by  way  of  atonement  for  perjury  in 
"some  forlorn  and  naked  hermitage," — well,  we'll  see  about  it !     And 


14  THE    ORIGINAL   VERSION    OF 

what  to  Biron  ?  He  must  be  purged  too :  let  him  spend  a  year  in  a 
hospital.  And  what  to  Dumain  ?  A  wife,  a  beard,  and  fair  health !  Let 
him  come  again  after  a  year,  and  if  Katherine  has  much  love  she'll  give 
him  some.  And  w^hat  to  Longaville?  Obviously  the  same  sort  of  re- 
sponse from  I\Iaria.  Love's  labour's  lost!  The  title  of  the  drama,  which 
has  puzzled  the  critics  from  Gildon  on,  was  certainly  clear  enough  at  the 
start.  Biron  says,  in  lines  which  have  distinctly  an  end-of-the-drama  ring 
to  them, 

"Our  wooing  doth  not  end  like  an  old  play ; 
Jack  hath  not  Jill.     These  ladies'  courtesy 
]\Iight  well  have  made  our  sport  a  comedy. 

King.     Come,  sir,  it  wants  a  twelvemonth  and  a  day, 
And  then  'twill  end. 

Biron.     That's  too  long  for  a  play." 

It  will  be  noticed  that  this  ending  not  only  explains  the  title  and 
accords  with  the  whole  spirit  of  the  piece,  but  particularly  characterizes 
Shakespeare  at  the  outset  of  his  dramatic  career.  Grant  White,  in  speak- 
ing of  the  omission  of  a  jester  from  this  drama,  says :  "It  is  ever  the  am- 
bitious way  of  youthful  genius  to  aim  at  novelty  of  form  in  its  first  essays 
.  .  .  Afterward  it  is  apt  to  return  to  established  forms,  and  to  show  orig- 
inality in  treatment."  However  far  the  additions  may  surpass  the  earlier 
version  in  poetic  power,  I  do  not  believe  that  Shakespeare  would  have 
written  any  of  them  in  1590  if  he  had  been  able  to  do  so ;  and  indeed,  as 
will  be  more  and  more  apparent,  the  additions  sacrifice  the  youthful  love 
of  symmetry  as  recklessly  and  even  perhaps  purposely,  as  they  do  the  care- 
ful endeavor  after  dramatic  technique. 

If  I  am  right  in  supposing  that  the  1590  drama  ended  with  the  lines 
quoted  above,  then  surely  something  was  done  to  the  Masque  of  the 
Worthies,  to  which  I  have  already  had  occasion  to  refer.  It  is  always 
said  that  the  inferiority  of  this  masque  to  that  in  the  Midsummer-Night's 
Dream  proves  that  it  was  written  earlier.  It  does  no  such  thing.  One 
might  as  w^ell  say  that  the  poorer  characterization  of  Falstaff  in  The 
Merry  Wives  of  Windsor  shows  that  play  to  be  earlier  than  Henry  IV. 
In  preparing  Love's  Labour's  Lost  for  a  Christmas  celebration  perform- 
ance before  the  insatiable  Elizabeth,  Shakespeare  would  naturally  intro- 
duce such  a  masque  as  we  find  here  for  the  very  reason  that  it  had  proved 
a  successful  expedient  in  a  former  play.  The  "tedious  brief  scene"  of 
Pyramus  and  Thisbe  is  most  carefully  worked  up;  whereas  the  Masque 
of  the  Worthies  shows,  for  the  most  part,  rather  the  carelessness  of  haste 
than  the  shortcomings  of  inexperience. 

This  masque,  however,  is  not  easily  disposed  of,  since  there  is  clearly 
nothing  in  it  which  was  above  Shakespeare's  ability  in  1590,  and  in  spite 


"love's  labour's  lost"  15 

of  the  Merry  Wives  it  is  hard  to  assign  it  to  Shakespeare  in  his  maturity. 
But  the  text  itself  solves  our  difficulty  by  showing  that  there  was  a  masque 
of  the  Worthies  in  the  play  which  was  different  from  the  one  we  have. 
At  least  I  submit  that  Costard's  announcement  in  lines  485-488  could  not 
have  been  written  for  the  present  masque  of  The  Nine  Worthies. 

For  observe  just  what  we  have  given  us.  Costard  enters  to  know  if 
the  three  Worthies  shall  come  in ;  he  is  asked  if  there  are  but  three,  and 
answers  that  every  one  presents  three ;  he  is  told  to  "bid  them  prepare," 
and  goes  out.  Almost  immediately  afterwards  Armado  enters  to  an- 
nounce the  coming  of  five  Worthies.  This  is  the  masque  that  is  given,  at 
least  until  the  entrance  of  Mercade  interrupts  it  at  the  end  of  the  "first 
show."  But  as  Shakespeare  seems  to  have  thrown  away  very  little  of  his 
original  material,  even  if  what  he  added  did  not  strictly  accord  with  it, 
it  is  presumable  that  some  if  not  all  of  the  original  masque  of  three 
Worthies  has  been  incorporated  in  the  present  arrangement.  But  before 
we  can  decide  what  this  is,  a  further  consideration,  and  this  is  the  chief 
of  my  contentions  on  this  subject,  must  detain  us. 

It  is  in  keeping  with  the  1590  play  that  there  should  be  a  masque  of 
three  Worthies,  each  one  presenting  three,  perhaps  interrupted  after  the 
first  round.  It  is  like  the  1597  revision  to  break  up  this  youthful  artificial- 
ity and  supply  instead  variety  and  vitality.  The  show  of  five  Worthies 
involves  the  appearance  of  Holofernes  and  Nathaniel,  whereas  the  show 
of  three  would  take  only  Costard,  Armado,  and  Moth.  It  is  not  arbi- 
trarily that  I  choose  these  three  to  the  exclusion  of  the  Pedant  and  the 
Curate ;  they  have  been  in  the  play  from  the  start ;  Costard  carries  Biron's 
and  Armado's  letters,  the  confusion  of  which  in  the  delivery  forms  the 
main  complication  of  the  drama ;  and  ]\Ioth  is  of  course  a  "sequel"  to 
Armado,  with  a  part  to  play  in  the  Muscovite  incident.  There  is  a  com- 
pletely different  story  to  tell  with  reference  to  Holofernes  and  Sir 
Nathaniel :  they  are  abruptly  introduced  in  the  fourth  act,  and  except  for 
receiving  Biron's  love  sonnet  and  sending  it  on  to  the  King,  of  which  I 
shall  have  more  to  say  presently,  they  have  not  the  faintest  excuse  for 
being  in  the  play  except  to  take  part  in  the  1597  version  of  the  masque.'' 

Granting  that  the  original  masque  of  three  Worthies  could  not  have 


~'  "We  take  an  entirely  fresh  start  in  the  announcement  that  Holofernes  and 
his  friends  are  to  act  The  Nine  Worthies  before  the  Princess  and  her  attendants. 
The  interests  in  the  final  act  have  been,  so  to  speak,  thrust  in  from  the  outside 
rather  than  developed  from  elements  of  the  story  started  in  the  earlier  acts." — 
Baker's  Development  of  Shakespeare  as  a  Dramatist,  p.  111.  But  Professor  Baker 
takes  this  "patchwork"  construction  to  show  Shakespeare's  limitations  at  the  start 
of  his  career.  The  recognition  of  the  "fresh  start"  should  have  suggested  a  fresh 
solution. 


16  THE   ORIGINAL   VERSION    OF 

involved  Holofernes  and  Nathaniel,  let  us  look  at  the  other  two  scenes  in 
which  these  characters  appear.  Act  V,  scene  i,  was  thought  by  Spedding 
to  show  so  many  traces  of  "the  maturer  hand"  that  he  added,  "and  may 
have  been  inserted  bodily."  Furnivall  agreed,  as  far  as  line  34.  Johnson 
spoke  of  the  "finished  representation  of  colloquial  excellence"  which  dis- 
tineuishes  the  "character  of  the  schoolmaster's  table-talk."  What  takes 
place  in  this  scene  is  that  Armado  comes  to  Holofernes  and  Nathaniel  to 
ask  their  assistance  in  presenting  "some  delightful  ostentation"  before  the 
Princess,  and  Holofernes  proposes  "The  Nine  Worthies."  He  proceeds 
to  cast  the  pageant  at  once,  and  here  comes  in  a  most  interesting  fact. 
Moth  and  Costard  he  casts  as  they  appear  in  the  show ;  to  Armado  he 
assigns  Judas  Maccabaeus,  the  part  which  he  assumes  himself ;  Nathaniel 
is  given  Joshua,  though  he  plays  /\lexander,  and,  apparently,  his  own 
part  has  been  left  blank,  to  be  filled  in  later.® 

Now  if  this  was  added,  and  Shakespeare  planned  to  expand  his 
masque  of  three  Worthies  into  a  show  of  five,  he  would  naturally  put 
down  the  three  already  in  the  play  quite  correctly,  while  he  might  assign 
the  new  characters  at  random,  or  leave  the  assignment  blank.  Such  a 
matter,  in  a  hastily  written  copy,  would  be  easily  adjusted  at  rehearsal,  or 
corrected  only  in  the  individual  actor's  part.^ 

This  falls  short  of  proof  that  Armado  was  Judas  Maccabaeus  in  the 
1590  version;  and  yet  the  more  one  considers  the  matter  the  more  in- 
clined he  becomes  to  believe  that  this  was  the  case.  The  appearance  of 
Moth  with  Judas  is  in  itself  some  indication ;  but  what  is  most  nearly  a 
warrant  for  this  assumption  is  the  appearance  which  Holofernes  gives 
of  being  a  personal  caricature,  and  the  opportunity  which  is  made  out  of 
the  part  of  Judas  in  this  direction.  The  portrait  and  the  part  of  Nathaniel, 
too,  bear  out  this  inference ;  but  of  this  matter  I  must  speak  later.  In  any 
event,  act  V,  scene  i,  gives  the  appearance  of  being  wholly  an  insertion, 
written  simply  to  develop  the  characters  of  Holofernes  and  Nathaniel  in 
preparation  for  their  appearance  in  the  masque.  We  have  still  to  ex- 
amine the  other  scene  in  which  they  appear,  in  which  they  are  first  intro- 
duced to  us,  act  IV,  scene  ii. 

In  this  scene  Costard  and  Jaquenetta  bring  in  Biron's  love  letter. 
This  fact,  which  at  first  seems  to  indicate  that  the  Pedant  and  Curate 
must  have  been  in  the  play  from  the  first,  soon  reveals  the  much  greater 
likelihood  that  they  were  added.  P^or  there  is  really  no  reason  why  the 
second  of  the  two  love  letters  should  be  delayed  in  its  journey  to  the 


s  For  a  fuller  discussion  of  this  matter,  see  notes  on  the  passage. 
8  One  must  remember,   however,   the   disparity  between   the  casting   and  the 
performance  of  the  masque  in  A  Midsummer-Night's  Dream. 


"love's  labour's  lost"  17 

King-.  The  clown  receives  Biron's  and  Armado's  letters  in  act  111,  which 
forms  the  climax  of  the  slender  plot.  In  the  first  scene  of  act  IV  he 
wrongly  delivers  Armado's  letter  to  the  Princess,  surrounded  by  her 
ladies;  in  what  was  the  second  (and  only  other)  scene  in  this  act,  he 
carries  Biron's  letter  to  the  King,  surrounded  by  his  lords.  The  symmetry 
of  this  was  inherent  in  the  older  drama.  Jaquenetta  has  the  line  of  ex- 
cuse, "Our  parson  misdoubts  it ;  'twas  treason,  he  said" ;  and  this  gave 
Shakespeare  the  opportunity  to  have  the  letter  first  opened  and  read  by 
a  parson  (as  Jaquenetta  persists  in  calling  the  Curate)  in  company  with 
his  friend,  the  schoolmaster. 

From  what  I  have  already  said,  two  things  should  be  apparent  re- 
garding the  delivery  of  Biron's  letter.  One  is,  that  the  1590  play  cries 
aloud  for  its  presence  in  scene  three,  that  it  may  be  read  after  each  of  the 
three  other  love  poems  has  revealed  the  sad  fall  of  its  doting  author  to 
the  constantly  increasing  delight  of  the  audience ;  and  the  other  thing  is 
that  Shakespeare  must  have  had  some  more  satisfying  reason  for  re- 
moving the  sonnet,  and  to  some  extent  spoiling  his  climax,  than  merely 
to  give  Holofernes  and  Nathaniel  something  to  talk  about.  This  reason, 
I  take  it,  was  deliberately  to  break  up  the  artificial  symmetry  which  the 
1590  drama  carried  much  too  far.  One  who  follows  through  this  argu- 
ment with  me  in  friendly  patience  may  or  may  not  accept  the  reason  I 
offer  for  Shakespeare's  removing  the  sonnet  to  his  new  scene  in  1597; 
but  that  the  young  poet  who  built  this  drama  did  in  the  first  instance 
intend  to  have  this  scene  of  the  reading  of  the  love  poems  capped  and 
completed  by  the  reading  of  Biron's  sonnet,  is,  I  think,  obvious. 

In  adding  act  I\^  scene  ii,  to  the  list  of  augmentations  I  lack  the 
authority  of  Spedding ;  and  indeed  there  is  comparatively  little  in  this 
scene  which  one  would  remove  from  the  original  drama  on  the  argument 
of  style,  while  there  are  many  lines  which  might  easily  have  been  written 
by  Shakespeare  in  1590.  But  for  that  matter,  one  might  find,  if  he  would 
look  in  the  same  spirit,  abundance  of  dialogue  in  any  of  the  plays  which 
was  not  above  Shakespeare's  powers  at  the  start.  It  is  therefore  doubtful 
whether  Dull's  stupid  conundrum  in  IV'.  ii,  36,  with  its  answer  in  40,  41, 
also  in  doggerel,  was  put  in  by  Shakespeare  in  1597  simply  because  it  was 
easy  enough  to  do  so  and  he  saw  no  reason  why  he  shouldn't,  or  was 
taken  from  some  discarded  scene  of  the  original  drama.  The  lines  which 
end  the  scene  just  before  this  one.  Costard's  "Armado  o'  the  one  side," 
etc.,  are  obviously  misplaced,  as  Staunton  "more  than  suspected,"  and 
just  as  surely  they  do  not  fit  in  any  scene  of  the  drama  as  we  have  it.  If 
these  lines  come  from  a  scene  discarded  in  the  revision,  then  Bull's  riddle 
and  Moth's  banter  in  V,  i,  may  also  have  been  taken  and  slightly  altered. 

It  seems  fairly   clear,  however,  that   Shakespeare  threw  away  the 

2 


18  THE   ORIGINAL   VERSION    OF 

speech  that  ]\Ioth  must  have  had  when  he  appeared  in  the  masque  for 
Hercules.  Moth  would  scarcely  have  been  introduced  in  the  first  draft  of 
the  play  as  a  silent  Worthy,  and  his  mere  appearance  and  exit  while  the 
rest  have  pieces  to  speak  looks  very  suspicious.  But  in  revising  the  play, 
Shakespeare's  interest  in  the  masque — I  cannot  free  myself  from  this  con- 
viction— was  apparently  in  its  satirical  possibiUties  and  in  its  rough  and 
boisterous  elements. 

I  am  not  of  those  who  incline  to  see  personal  references  in  Eliz- 
abethan drama,  and  my  faith  is  somewhat  taxed  and  strained  even  by 
allusions  which  are  well  accredited.  I  am  especially  averse  to  reading 
such  suggestions  into  Shakespeare,  since  at  the  best  they  are  distasteful, 
and  him  I  honor,  on  this  side  idolatry,  as  much  as  any.  I  should  be  re- 
luctant to  revive  Warburton's  much-condemned  theory  that  Florio  was 
intended  by  Holofernes,  and  I  have  no  great  interest  in  knowing  who 
might  have  been  the  victim  of  Shakespeare's  ridicule.  But  that  both 
Holofernes  and  Nathaniel  were  intended  as  caricatures  which  would  be 
identified  at  the  court  performance,  I  am  unable  to  doubt.  It  is  a  slight 
indication  that  Armado  originally  played  the  part  of  Judas  that  we  have 
the  reference  to  his  ugliness  in  V,  ii,  611-627,  which  at  once  recalls 
Jaquenetta's  "With  that  face  ?"  (I,  ii,  146) .  If  the  ugliness  had  been  given 
originally  to  Armado,  and  Holofernes  was  introduced  as  a  personal  satire 
on  Florio,  for  example,  nothing  would  be  more  natural  than  that  the  part 
of  "Jude-ass"  should  be  given  over  to  him.  The  reference  to  "plain 
Judas"  might  indicate  that  the  subject  of  the  satire  was  a  false  friend.^" 


i°If  the  Christmas  referred  to  on  the  title  page  of  the  Quarto  was  that  of 
1598,  then  there  was  abundant  time  for  Shakespeare  to  introduce  the  character 
of  Holofernes  after  Florio's  World  of  Words  was  published.  Hunter  says:  "If  I 
were  disposed  to  defend  the  position  taken  by  [Warburton  and  Farmer],  I  should 
press  into  the  service  a  passage  in  Act  i,  sc.  ii,  regarding  Holofernes  and  Armado 
as  being  jointly  John  Florio."  He  then  cites  Jaquenetta's  "With  that  face?"  and 
comments  on  Florio's  appearance.  If  Florio  took  umbrage  at  the  portrait  of 
Armado,  and  Holofernes  was  introduced  in  1598  as  a  much  more  obvious  cari- 
cature, we  could  understand  what  now  is  a  bit  puzzling,  a  certain  generic  similarity 
between  the  Braggart  and  the  Pedant.  But  I  do  not  feel  any  personal  satire  to  be 
inevitably  present  in  Armado ;  and  the  possible  choice  of  1598  for  the  Christmas 
performance  would  equally  increase  the  chance  that  Holofernes  was  patterned  on 
Rombus,  in  Sidney's  May-Lady,  as  Johnson  thought;  for  this  was  also  published 
for  the  first  time  in  1598.  Rombus  not  only  introduces  Latin  phrases,  but  he 
"affects  the  letter"  and  defines  with  a  series  of  synonyms.  Note  the  following 
sentence :  "Well,  well,  ad  propositos  revertebo;  the  puritie  of  the  veritie  is  that 
certain  Fulcra  puella  profecto,  elected  and  constituted  by  the  integrated  determ- 
ination of  all  this  topographical  region,  as  the  Sovereign  Ladie  of  this  Dame  Maie's 
month,  hath  been  quodammodo  hunted,  as  you  would  say,  pursued  by  two,  a  brace, 
a  couple,  a  cast  of  young  men,  to  whom  the  crafty  coward  Cupid  had  inquam  de- 
livered his  dire-dolorous  dart." 


<( 


love's  labour's  lost"  19 


The  treatment  of  the  Curate.  Sir  Nathaniel,  also  suggests  a  personal 
attack,  which  reaches  the  point  of  open  insult  when  he  appears  for  Alex- 
ander. It  is  possible  that  the  Constable,  Dull,  originally  took  this  part,  for 
Dull  would  have  made  an  admirable  Worthy,  and  he  would  fit  the  com- 
ments which  are  made  on  Alexander  in  a  way  that  the  Curate  distinctly 
does  not.  Biron's  strong  implication  that  the  actor  does  not  smell  like  the 
Worthy  he  presents  implies  that  this  person  was  of  a  lower  walk  in  life 
than  Sir  Nathaniel ;  for  Shakespeare  always  imputes  offensive  breath  to 
the  "vulgar" ;  and  Costard's  patronizing  familiarity  toward  his  good 
neighbor  (and  very  good  bowler)  does  not  at  all  suggest  his  relation  to 
the  Curate  to  whom  in  duty  he  and  Jaquenetta  bring  Biron's  letter.  But 
the  original  masque  does  not  seem  to  have  allowed  for  Dull  as  Alexander ; 
and  a  personal  invective  gives  much  more  point  to  the  whole  passage. 
Costard  and  Armado  are  not  ridiculed  in  the  same  way ;  the  references 
are  either  to  the  physical  proportions  of  the  actors,  or  are  mere  inter- 
ruptions for  fun's  sake  (except  "More  calf,  certain"),  and  end  in  ob- 
scenity and  riot  to  delight  the  audience.  It  is  not  fanciful  to  see  a  dis- 
tinct difference  in  the  treatment  of  Holofernes  and  Sir  Nathaniel.  Still,  I 
have  not  been  able  to  separate  the  two  versions  of  the  masque  with  any 
assurance  of  complete  exactitude,  and  I  offer  my  text  at  this  point  as  only 
substantially  correct. 

One  is  naturally  reluctant  to  deprive  the  comedy  of  1590,  fragile  at 
its  best,  of  the  only  vital  characters  in  the  whole  play.  It  may  be  objected, 
too,  that  the  Pedant  suggests  a  youthful  parody  of  the  Stratford  school- 
master ;  but  what,  then,  should  one  say,  by  analogy,  of  Shakespeare's 
sketch  of  Justice  Shallow  in  the  Merry  Wives? 

I  have  now  indicated  the  main  additions  of  1597  as  they  have  ap- 
peared to  me  after  repeated  examinations.  Removing  from  the  play 
the  portions  I  have  now  indicated,  I  find  in  the  resultant  length  of  the 
acts  an  almost  startling  confirmation  of  my  thesis.  In  place  of  a  dispro- 
portion as  amazing  as  it  is  unique  in  Elizabethan  drama,  we  have  a  normal 
proportion  in  the  acts  and  a  total  of  lines  somewhat  greater  than  the 
number  in  TJie  Comedy  of  Errors  and  somewhat  less  than  the  number 
in  the  two  comedies  which  succeeded  it.  The  additions  of  1597  bring 
Love's  Labour's  Lost  even  beyond  the  length  of  the  Shrczu  and  the  Mer- 
chant of  Venice,  which  are  some  five  or  six  hundred  lines  longer  than  the 
comedies  of  the  first  group.  The  number  of  prose  lines  still  remains 
high,  though  cut  nearly  in  half  by  removing  the  later  additions ;  but  this 
is  due,  I  presume,  to  the  nearness  of  the  original  play  to  the  prose  com- 
edies of  Lyly.  With  regard  to  the  language  and  the  meter  I  need  only 
say  that  the  revision  would  of  course  be  written,  for  the  sake  of  unity  of 
impression,  in  imitation  of  the  earlier  manner,  rhyming  abundantly  be- 


20  THE   ORIGINAL   VERSION    OF 

cause  Shakespeare  was  abundantly  able  to  rhyme,  and  consciously  affect- 
ing the  earlier  style  except  where  the  seriousness  of  the  theme  led  to  a 
more  natural  and  a  nobler  expression.  But  I  shall  not  go  into  the  implica- 
tions of  the  now  somewhat  over-discredited  methods  of  the  over-laborious 
line  counters  of  the  New  Shakespeare  Society. 

I  have  found  that  the  new  material  was  added,  as  we  should  naturally 
expect,  for  the  purpose  of  strengthening  the  old  play  on  the  sides  where 
it  was  weakest,  and  contains  such  features  as  Shakespeare  would  most 
naturally  introduce  for  an  entertainment  to  be  "presented  before  her 
Highness."  The  first  two  acts  and  the  fourth  receive  a  few  opening 
lines  to  set  the  deeper  tone  (the  third  act  does  not  offer  the  opportunity 
for  this),  and  the  more  serious  strain  rises  majestically  in  the  finale.  To 
Biron  and  his  lady  the  real  ardor  of  love  and  its  fitting  response  are 
given,  and  their  associates  share  somewhat  in  this  deepening  of  character 
and  motive.  Two  new  characters  are  created,  of  broad  and  vital  humor, 
the  more  real  perhaps  that  they  expose  to  ridicule  the  foibles  of  two  men 
the  queen  and  court  would  delight  to  laugh  at ;  and  they  serve  to  trans- 
form the  set  and  stupid  masque  into  a  scene  of  rough  and  boisterous 
merriment.  The  artificial  symmetry  of  the  Lyly-like  play  is  ruthlessly 
broken  into,  but  the  plot  itself  and  all  the  scenes  which  developed  it  re- 
main almost  exactly  as  they  were.  It  is  this  that  enables  us  now  to  read 
the  play  without  the  confusing  and  distorting  elements  which  have  ob- 
scured its  true  character  for  320  years.  For  though  the  additions  of  1597 
are  beyond  question  the  finest  and  most  vital  portions  of  the  drama,  it 
must  be  admitted  that  the  original  version  has  a  charm  of  its  own,  and 
shows  a  careful  sense  of  form  and  consistency  of  treatment  which  makes 
this  and  not  an  ill-balanced  and  top-heavy  method  of  construction  the 
prime  characteristic  of  Shakespeare  when  he  set  about  the  making  of  his 
earliest  comedy. 


« 


love's  labour's  lost"  21 


A  KEY  TO  THE  TEXT  OF  THE  ORIGINAL  VERSION  OF 
LOVE'S  LABOUR'S  LOST 

ACT  I.         Scene  i.    Omit  lines  1-10  and  question  24-33. 
Scene  ii  remains  as  it  stands. 

ACT  II.  Scene  i.  Omit  lines  1-20;  but  see  note  on  this  passage.  The 
minor  characters  may  have  been  introduced  in  a  second 
scene. 

ACT  III.  Scene  i  remains  as  it  stands.  The  major  characters  may 
have  been  introduced  in  a  second  scene. 

ACT  IV.  Scene  i.  Omit  lines  1-4.  Omit  from  line  110  to  the  end  of 
the  scene.  (This  passage  does  not  belong  here.  It  may  have 
been  taken  from  a  rejected  scene  belonging  to  act  II;  or  it 
may  be  an  interpolation.    See  note.) 

Omit  scene  ii.  (The  doggerel  may  also  be  taken  from  a  re- 
jected act  II,  scene  ii.  and  slightly  revised  to  fit  the  new- 
characters.  Biron's  sonnet  is  to  be  carried  forward  to  the 
next  scene.) 

Scene  iii.  Question  Longaville's  sonnet,  lines  60-73.  Insert 
Biron's  sonnet  from  the  previous  scene  after  line  219  (but 
see  note  on  this  passage).  Omit  lines  220-281.  Question 
lines  305-308.  Omit  lines  318-354.  Question  lines  363-365, 
and  370-380. 

ACT  V.       Omit  scene  i. 

Scene  ii.  Question  lines  315-334.  Omit  line  462.  Omit  the 
prose  lines  492-509,  and  read  as  one  line, 

I  hope,  sir,  three  times  thrice,  sir — 
Biron.  Go,  bid  them  prepare. 

Omit  lines  515-549,  questioning  the  doggerel  543-549  as  re- 
vised from  the  early  play  or  as  an  interpolation.  Question  the 
references  to  the  "bigness"  of  Pompey  in  453-455  and  562. 
Question  559-564.  Question  the  entire  passage  565-634  as 
rewritten,  saving  as  probably  a  portion  of  the  early  play  599- 
605,  some  of  the  references  to  the  ugliness  of  the  actor  and 
the  doggerel  at  the  end,  substituting  Armado  for  Holofernes. 
Omit  lines  635-721.  saving  merely  the  entrance  of  Mercade 


22  THE    ORIGINAL    VERSION    OF 

with  his  salutation.  Mark  the  stage  direction  as  "Enter  a 
]\Iessenger,  Monsieur  Mercade  [with  a  packet]."  Omit  lines 
725-799,  and  supply  in  place  of  them  a  note  to  the  effect  that 
the  Princess  receives  the  packet  and  delivers  it  to  the  King, 
who  thereupon  acknowledges  his  error  ■  and  entreats  the 
Princess  to  marry  him.  Save  lines  800-808  as  a  portion  of  her 
original  reply.  The  rest  of  her  answer  is  revised,  but  may  be 
read  with  substantial  correctness  in  lines  809,  810,  814,  815, 
821,  822.  Save  lines  823-842,  supplying  after  line  832  Biron's 
reply  in  lines  880,  881.  Omit  lines  843,  844,  supplying  as  line 
843  the  following : 

Longaville.     And  what  to  me,  my  love  ?  and  what  to  me  ? 

with  the  note  that  Maria  makes  him  a  response  similar  to 
that  given  by  the  other  ladies.  Lines  845,  846  may  go  with 
the  original  writing.  Omit  lines  847-879.  Save  as  the  orig- 
inal ending  of  the  play  lines  882-888,  omitting  the  rest  from 
Armado's  re-entrance. 

By  marking  out  the  passages  I  have  indicated  as  surely  or  probably 
belonging  to  the  additions  of  1597,  it  will  be  found  that  there  remain  1912 
lines,  of  which  541  are  prose,  346  are  blank  verse,  778  are  pentameter 
rhymes,  and  the  rest  are  short  lines  or  doggerel.  The  blank  verse  con- 
tains 5.9  per  cent  of  double  endings,  and  no  weak  or  light  endings;  11.9 
per  cent  of  the  speeches  end  within  the  line ;  and  there  are  8.7  per  cent  of 
run-on  lines  according  to  my  counting. 


4 


I 


'love's  labour's  lost"  23 


SUPPLEMENTARY  NOTES 

ACT  I,  scene  i,  lines  1-10.  The  opening  lines  were,  I  think,  added 
in  the  revision.  They  are  somewhat  more  involved  and  fuller  in  tone  than 
what  follows.    Line  1 1  makes  a  natural  beginning  for  the  original  play. 

24-33.  I  suspect  that  these  lines  also  were  added.  One  may  detect 
a  difference  in  tone  and  an  easier  command  of  the  meter.  Line  34  joins 
naturally  to  line  23.  Spedding  included  Biron's  protest  in  the  lines  that 
follow  as  among  the  probable  additions ;  but  the  style  is  obviously  early, 
and  this  setting  apart  of  Biron  is  inherent  in  the  very  structure  of  the 
drama. 

77 .  The  key  to  this  line,  somewhat  darkened  by  its  four  "lights," 
is  that  each  of  the  four  uses  of  the  word  is  defined  in  exactly  the  order 
in  v.diich  they  occur  in  the  line :  our  intellect  seeking  truth  deprives  the 
eyes  of  sight. 

80-93.  That  these  fourteen  lines  happen  to  form  an  English  sonnet 
means  nothing.  Just  beyond,  lines  163-176  form  a  sonnet,  though  a 
rhyming  line  precedes  and  another  follows,  the  latter  finishing  the  King's 
speech.  Again  V,  ii,  402-415,  makes  a  sonnet.  Nothing  is  more  natural 
than  that  in  a  play  where  alternates  and  couplets  are  freely  used,  three  sets 
of  alternates  should  sometimes  be  followed  by  a  couplet.  These  all  be- 
long to  the  early  draft  of  the  play.  Shakespeare  was  probably  as  uncon- 
scious of  sonnet  writing  here  as  was  M.  Jourdain  that  he  talked  in  prose. 

114.  The  Second  Folio  first  gives  swore  for  szvoni.  Brae  violently 
objects  to  our  keeping  the  rhyme  here,  and  gives  examples  of  how  Row- 
ley, Rofife,  Chapman,  and  Warner  are  content  with  a  repetition  of  the 
vowel  sound.  He  cites  also  307-311  in  this  scene;  but  the  quatrain  ut- 
terly ignores  the  pseudo-rhyme  of  line  307.  Have  for  barbarism  spoke 
occurs  in  this  very  passage,  and  have  spoke  in  V,  ii,  349,  where  again  the 
rhyme  {provoke)  triumphs  over  the  grammar.  Have  chose  also  occurs 
in  this  scene,  at  line  170:  but  it  is  needless  to  record  instances  of  a  use 
so  common  in  Shakespeare. 

182.  The  King  is  referred  to  as  "Duke"  in  three  other  places  in 
this  play;  once  by  Armado  (L  ii,  38),  once  more  by  Dull  (I,  ii,  132),  and 
once  by  the  Princess  (H,  i,  38).  On  a  similar  confusion  in  Tzi'elfth  Night 
Fleay  tries  to  distinguish  an  earlier  and  later  version ;  his  argument  in 
this  play  is  based  on  the  substitution  of  Navarre  for  King,  and  Princess 
for  Queen,  and  a  confusion  of  Holofernes  and  Nathaniel.    See  note  on  II, 


24  THE   ORIGINAL    VERSION    OF 

i,  21.  Walker,  cited  and  upheld  by  Furness,  says,  "King,  count,  and  duke 
were  one  and  the  same  to  the  poet,  all  involving  alike  the  idea  of  sov- 
ereign power ;  and  thus  might  be  easily  confounded  with  each  other  in 
the  memory."  Certainly  no  grounds  for  distinguishing  the  original  ver- 
sion can  be  found  here. 

Scene  ii,  line  S7.  Hart:  "Morocco,  Banks'  famous  horse  .  .  . 
seems  to  have  been  known  first  in  1591,  but  our  play's  received  date  has 
been  1588  or  1589,  and  the  passage  would  needs  be  regarded  as  a  later 
insertion — a  disagreeable  supposition,  and  it  is  preferable  to  regard  the 
allusion  as  evidence  of  the  later  date."  Malone  (cited  by  Furness)  : 
"Banks's  horse  had  been  exhibited  in  or  before  1589,  as  appears  from  a 
story  recorded  in  Tarleton's  Jests.    Tarleton  died  in  1589." 

131.  Moth's  line,  "Forbear  till  this  company  be  past,"  may  have 
been  supplied  in  1597.  Compare  his  "Concolinel"  in  III,  i,  3,  and  the  note 
on  it. 

183-187.  Malone  (Prolegomena)  :  "Shakespeare  seems  to  have 
had  in  his  thoughts  Saviola's  Treatise  Of  honour  and  honourable  quarrels, 
published  in  1595.  This  passage  also  may  have  been  an  addition."  Halli- 
well  quotes  a  passage  from  this  book  which  Furness  cites  with  the  com- 
ment: "This  quotation  seems  hardly  apposite.  .  .  ."  (See  his  note  for 
details.) 

187-190.     Compare  Sir  Tophas  in  love;   Lyly's  Endymion,  III,  iii. 

190.  I  have  only  one  predecessor  in  preferring  a  sonnet  to  sonnet 
(in  the  Oq  and  Ff),  or  sonnets,  sonneteer,  sonnetist,  sonnet-maker,  or 
sonnet-monger.  The  change  seems  to  me  called  for  (in  spite  of 
"turned  orthography"  in  Much  Ado),  and  the  most  natural  and  least 
violent  of  the  suggested  emendations.  The  multiplication  of  this  into 
"whole  volumes  in  folio"  is  natural  enough. 

ACT  II,  scene  i,  lines  1-20.  This  act,  again,  begins  at  a  higher 
level.  Line  21  marks  a  natural  beginning  for  the  original  version  of  this 
act ;  but  it  must  be  noted  that  Boyet  was  not  named  in  the  Princess's 
speech  if  it  began  here  and  was  not  otherwise  changed.  The  folio  marks 
this  line  as  beginning  a  speech  by  the  Princess,  though  the  quarto  does 
not,  which  (if  the  first  twenty  lines  were  added  in  the  revision)  looks  as 
if  the  editors  of  the  folio  may  have  had  a  copy  of  the  quarto  with  certain 
mistakes  not  corrected.  There  are  other  evidences  of  this.  Furnivall 
noted  four  slight  differences  between  the  copy  he  used  for  the  Griggs  fac- 
simile and  the  Capell  copy  in  Trinity  Library. 

21.  Fleay:  "In  II,  i,  the  lines  21-114  were  almost  certainly  added 
in  1597.  They  begin  with  a  prefix  Prin.  inserted  in  the  middle  of  one  of 
the  Queen's  (Princess's)  speeches;  and  in  them  only  throughout  the  play 
is  the  prefix  Nav.  (Navarre)  used  for  King." — Life  of  Shakespeare,  p. 


"love's  labour's  lost"  25 

202.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  Princess  is  continued  throughout  this  scene, 
whereas  Navarre  goes  back  to  Ferdinand  in  the  Quarto  and  King  in  the 
FoHo  at  hne  129.  and  King  is  continued  in  both  throughout  the  rest  of  the 
play.  At  the  beginning  of  act  IV,  however,  the  Princess  enters  and  the 
Queen  speaks !  Nothing  regarding  the  added  portions  can  be  made  of  this 
confusion  of  names. 

45.  Whenever  I  have  read  this  play,  I  have  stumbled  over  this  line 
and  instinctively  read  it,  "In  arts  well  fitted ;  glorious  in  arms,"  before  I 
found  that  this  had  been  conjectured  by  Grant  White  and  adopted  by 
Keightley.  The  change  is  too  natural  a  one,  and  the  line  as  not  emended 
too  barbarous  to  permit  me  to  believe  that  Shakespeare  wrote  it  as  it  has 
come  down  to  us. 

89.  Capell  introduced  the  stage  direction  "Ladies  mask,"  which  has 
been  generally  adopted.  Furness  says  that  it  "is  to  be  construed  strictly ; 
it  does  not  include  the  Princess."  But  how,  then,  does  Biron  recognize 
the  lady  with  whom  he  danced  at  Brabant?  How  does  he  know  in  the 
next  act,  unless  we  are  to  suppose  an  unrecorded  meeting,  that  she  is  "A 
whitely  wanton  with  a  velvet  brow,  With  two  pitch-balls  stuck  in  her  face 
for  eyes"?  If  we  are  to  supply  Shakespeare  with  stage  directions  we 
could  just  as  well  indicate  that  Rosaline  masks  after  line  123  as  an  added 
rebuff,  and  escape  both  of  these  difificulties. 

115  fif.  In  the  distribution  of  names  I  have  preferred  the  folio,  giving 
both  conversations  to  Biron  and  Rosaline.  Furness  thinks  that  "merely 
on  dramatic  grounds"  each  of  the  ladies  should  have  the  opportunity  to 
"reveal  her  character."  But  it  was  much  better,  "merely  on  dramatic 
grounds,"  to  feature  the  hero  and  heroine,  and  let  Dumain  and  Longaville 
merely  inquire  the  names  of  the  ladies  with  whom  they  have  been  talking 
in  dumb  show. 

178.  Furnivall  asks  us  to  contrast  the  rest  of  this  scene  with  what 
goes  before,  and  so  observe  that  the  first  177  lines  must  belong  to  the  re- 
vision. No  doubt  he  meant  to  extend  the  finer  portion  to  the  King's  exit. 
It  is  too  bad  to  shelter  so  poor  a  suggestion  behind  so  honored  a  name. 
Though  the  last  part  of  the  scene  is  undeniably  inferior,  the  first  part  is 
no  better  than  act  I,  scene  i.  and  act  III,  scene  i,  which  Furnivall  accepts 
as  early,  and  which  this  .scene  connects  without  any  observable  difference 
of  tone. 

195.  Our  authorities  both  give  Rosalitie  here  and  Katheriiie  in  line 
210.  "That  same"  would  s^em  to  refer  to  Rosaline,  who  has  just  been 
speaking;  and  if  she  were  the  one  in  the  cap.  Boyet's  misleading  answer 
to  Biron  would  be  appreciated  by  the  audience  (since  they  have  just  been 
told  that  her  name  was  really  Rosaline).  But  judging  from  line  65. 
Shakespeare  did  not  mean  Rosaline  to  be  the  heir  of  Alenqon ;  and  a  mis- 


26  THE   ORIGINAL   VERSION    OF 

lead  as  to  names  here  would  be  poor  humor  and  worse  dramaturgy. 
Biron's  exit  and  re-entrance  would,  however,  make  the  reading  of  the 
quarto  and  folio  entirely  possible. 

ACT  III,  scene  i,  line  3.  The  word  concolinel  suggests  the  notes 
of  a  yodel,  and  "warble"  and  "yodel"  have  sometimes  been  confused.  Of 
course  Armado  means  for  him  to  sing,  and  it  would  be  like  Moth  to  take 
the  word  in  a  different  sense,  if  that  were  possible.  If  the  "warble"  was 
intended  for  a  laugh,  then  Armado's  "sweet  air"  was  intended  for  another. 
The  folio  has  "Song"  before  Armado  first  speaks,  and  the  quarto  has  not. 
It  is  possible  that  as  the  play  was  first  written  Moth  had  a  song  both  here 
and  at  I,  ii,  131,  and  that  when  the  play  was  presented  "before  her  High- 
ness this  last  Christmas"  the  boy  who  played  Moth  could  not  sing.  Hence 
here  we  have  a  "warble"  substituted,  and  in  the  former  instance,  after  a 
song  was  needlessly  prepared  for,  Moth  simply  says,  "Forbear  till  this 
company  be  passed." 

24-26.  I  have  no  authority  for  reading  ''not  be  betrayed,"  but  I  be- 
lieve the  change  is  called  for  by  the  "men  of  note."  In  line  26  I  omit  men 
after  note;  my  warrant  is  that  we  have  so  many  other  instances  where  a 
word  from  the  line  above  has  been  repeated.  I  cannot  bring  myself  to  ac- 
cept any  of  the  various  other  emendations  which  have  been  offered. 

7Z.  I  should  take  out  the  much  disputed-over  "in  thee  male."  The 
passage  is  obviously  corrupt ;  it  is  one  of  those  marked  with  an  obelus  in 
the  Globe  Edition ;  no  satisfactory  emendation  has  been  proposed.  Cos- 
tard's speech  makes  perfectly  good  sense  with  the  words  omitted ;  and 
since  we  cannot  have  Shakespeare's  words,  I  prefer  none  at  all  to  the  un- 
satisfying and  confusing  guess  of  any  commentator. 

121.  Marry  must  surely  be  supplied.  There  is  nothing  to  gain  and 
a  trifle  to  lose,  in  omitting  sirrah;  and  as  Collier's  MS.,  which  gives 
Sirrah  Costard,  marry,  is  without  authority,  I  prefer  to  read  the  line, 
"Marry,  sirrah  Costard,  I  will  enfranchise  thee."  The  same  playing  on  the 
word  occurs  in  Romeo  and  Juliet  and  Richard  III. 

144  ff.  Of  the  nine  speeches  of  Biron  from  here  to  the  end  of  the 
scene,  seven  begin  with  O  in  the  quarto,  and  all  but  that  at  line  148  are 
copied  in  the  folio.  At  II,  i,  213,  IV,  iii,  283  and  289,  the  same  thing 
occurs,  the  folio  correcting  only  the  first.  The  Cambridge  Editors  sug- 
gested that  "the  'O'  appears  to  have  crept  into  the  text  from  the  last 
letter  of  the  stage  direction  'Bero.'  "  This  entirely  satisfactory  explana- 
tion was  contested  by  Furness  on  the  ground  that  there  are  "twenty-six 
lines  here  and  there,  spoken  by  various  characters  which  begin  with  'O'," 
and  he  suggests  that  "it  is  conceivable  that  the  interjection  is  due  to  the 
embarrassment  of  the  speaker  in  having  to  employ  so  ignoble  a  messenger 
as  Costard  in  sending  a  love  letter."    Of  the  ten  places  in  the  quarto  where 


"love's  labour's  lost"  27 

the  O  does  not  clearly  belong  in  the  play,  all  are  to  be  accounted  for  by 
the  "o"  of  "Bero."  Though  O's  are  plentiful,  the  mistake  does  not  occur 
in  this  play  under  any  other  conditions.  Bcr.  is  written  for  Bcroivne 
(Biron)  seventy-three  times,  and  Bcro.  fifty-nine  times.  The  extraneous 
O  always  occurs  after  Bcr. 

171-174.  J.  AI.'s  A  Health  to  the  gentlemanly  Profession  of  Serving- 
Men,  according  to  the  note  in  Furness's  Variorum  Edition  at  this  point, 
makes  an  incident  out  of  this  speech ;  and  if  the  book  was  published  in 
1598  (Collier's  date),  the  implication  is  that  Costard's  speech  was  in  the 
original  version.  This  is  small  comfort,  since  no  one  would  ever  doubt 
it ;  but  I  am  not  consciously  passing  over  any  matters  that  may  bear  upon 
my  problem. 

175-207.  Furnivall  gives  Biron's  soliloquy  as  "surely"  a  part  of  "the 
later  work."  The  act  is  very  short.  It  is  conceivable  that  Shakespeare 
introduced  more  of  his  main  characters,  and  in  revising  shortened  a  full 
scene  to  the  present  soliloquy.  But  the  story  of  the  drama  does  not  call 
for  any  such  scene,  and  the  "whitely  wanton"  (see  next  note)  makes 
against  Furnivall's  conjecture.  To  me,  the  style  of  the  passage  is  as  ob- 
viously early  as  it  could  possibly  be. 

198.  This  line,  which  has  given  rise  to  so  much  comment  because  of 
its  contradiction  to  the  "black"  so  strongly  insisted  upon  later,  belongs,  I 
am  confident,  to  the  early  version.  The  difference  in  time  between  the 
two  writings,  and  the  carelessness  with  which  the  revision  was  accom- 
plished, are  sufficient  to  account  for  the  discrepancy. 

ACT  IV,  scene  i,  lines  1-41.  Spedding:  "There  are  also  a  few 
lines  (1-3)  at  the  opening  of  the  fourth  act  which  I  have  no  doubt  were 
introduced  in  the  corrected  copy:  [the  lines  are  quoted.]  It  was  thus 
that  Shakespeare  learned  to  shade  off  his  scenes,  to  carry  the  action  be- 
yond the  stage."  Line  4  would  necessarily  be  included  with  1-3.  Hart : 
"Also  the  opening  of  the  Hunting  Scene  (IV,  i).  .  .  .  wears  a  more 
finished  appearance  than  its  surroundings."  Line  5  would  mark  a  natural 
beginning  for  this  scene,  and  I  think  the  first  four  lines  were  added.  .\ 
few  lines  to  set  the  tone  at  the  beginning  of  a  scene  would  be  natural  in 
a  revision  of  this  sort.  It  is  possible  that  this  entire  passage  was  touched 
up.  Four  of  the  parallels  to  the  Sonnets  which  McClumpha  finds  (Mod- 
ern Language  Notes,  June,  1900)  occur  in  this  passage,  and  practically 
all  of  his  really  significant  parallels  occur  in  the  1597  portions  of  the  play. 

108;  110-151.  Johnson  suggested  "Come,  Ladies,  away."  I  have 
had  the  courage  to  adopt  this,  and  throw  away  all  that  follows  the  Exeunt 
in  the  folio,  as  an  interpolation.  In  the  concluding  lines  of  the  scene  we 
have  unmistakable  evidence  that  something  is  wrong,  and  no  imagining 
that  Costard  sees  Armado  off  the  stage  will  explain  it.    The  lines  are  not 


28  THE   ORIGINAL    VERSION    OF 

consistent  here,  nor  at  any  other  point  in  the  drama.  The  reference  to 
Armado  seems  wholly  inappropriate.  "We  have  no  knowledge"  says 
Furness,  "that  Costard  had  ever  seen  Armado  in  company  with  ladies, 
kissing  his  hand,  bearing  their  fans,  etc."  Yet  this  Armado  of  Costard's 
description  accords  better  with  I,  i,  163-179,  where  he  is  first  mentioned, 
than  does  the  Armado  whom  we  see.  This  consideration,  taken  by  itself, 
would  indicate  that  Armado's  part  had  been  rewritten.  This  is  possible, 
for  he  is  the  only  character  of  the  original  version  who  stands  out  as 
having  some  reality.  But  I  think  the  evidence  far  too  faint.  Furness 
thinks  that  the  use  of  Braggart  for  Armado  may  be  due  to  the  revision; 
but  a  study  of  the  text  will  not  warrant  any  conclusions  of  this  sort. 
Martin  Hume  ("Some  Spanish  Influences  in  Elizabethan  Literature"  in 
Transactions  of  the  Royal  Society  of  Literature,  Second  Series,  XXIX, 
No.  1)  believes  that  Armado's  part  was  rewritten,  and  in  the  1597  or  1598 
version  Shakespeare  ridiculed  the  style  of  Antonio  Perez,  who  visited 
England  1593-1595.  In  particular,  Hume  notes  that  Holof ernes  applies 
the  term  "peregrinate"  to  Armado  (V,  i,  15),  and  Perez  signed  himself 
"Peregrino,"  (Pilgrim).  But  even  if  this  is  true,  it  is  not  necessary  to 
imagine  that  Armado's  part  was  rewritten.  Holofernes's  reference  and 
x\rmado's  style  in  the  added  portions  would  be  sufficient  to  account  for  the 
reference  if  it  is  indeed  a  true  one. 

Scene  ii,  line  5.  If  Shakespeare  had  meant  to  identify  Florio  by 
using  his  definition,  he  certainly  would  not  have  omitted  "the  firmament." 
How  could  one  define  caelo  and  terra,  using  a  list  of  synonyms,  and  avoid 
Florio's  words  ? 

24-41.  If  doggerel  can  be  parodied,  it  is  certainly  parodied  here. 
It  may  be  that  lines  26-29  are  intended  as  one  ungainly,  burlesque  line, 
to  be  carried  out  of  the  realm  of  meter  altogether  and  tied  to  the  next 
only  by  its  rhyme, — which  is  the  reductio  ad  absurdnm  of  doggerel  verse. 
For  a  modern  equivalent  (if  this  were  really  Shakespeare's  intention), 
see  Gilbert's  "Lost  Mr.  Blake"  in  the  Bab  Ballads,  where  some  of  the 
lines  actually  reach  the  dimensions  of  this  one. 

67.  The  change  of  names  which  begins  here  in  the  quarto,  and  is 
not  corrected  in  the  folio,  extends  in  this  scene  to  line  155.  Fleay  con- 
tends from  this,  and  V,  i,  125,  that  Holofernes  was  originally  the  Curate, 
and  hence  that  the  beginning  and  end  of  this  scene  belong  to  "the  1597 
version."  His  reason  is  that  the  change  was  "intended  to  disguise  a  per- 
sonal satire  which,  however  pertinent  in  1589,  had  become  obsolete  in 
1597."  No  one  has  accepted  Fleay's  allegorical  interpretation  (Anglia, 
VII,  228),  nor  his  division  of  a  scene  which  does  not  lend  itself  to  any 
such  breaking  up  as  he  suggests.  If  the  change  of  names  was  made  by 
Shakespeare,  it  would  argue  merely  a  change  in  his  decision  while  writing 


"love's  labour's  lost"  29 

the  scene,  and  not  a  pointless  alteration  made  years  later  to  disguise  an 
allegory  that  was  not  there.  It  is  easier  to  account  for  so  extended  a 
mistake  in  the  hastily  written  revision  than  in  the  careful  copy  of  the 
original  play.  Shakespeare  may  have  written  these  additions  to  the  play 
with  the  names  as  we  have  them  from  here  to  line  155.  and  (so  far  as  we 
can  tell)  throughout  the  fifth  act.  (See  note  at  V,  i,  125.)  In  this 
case,  the  desirability  of  changing  them  would  have  led  to  a  partial  re- 
vision, not  completed  in  the  MS.  which  served  as  copy  for  the  quarto. 

99,  100.  The  Italian  belongs  to  the  revision,  so  Shakespeare's  knowl- 
edge of  the  language  need  not  have  been  too  early  to  be  easily  accounted 
for.  The  Latin  also  is  of  the  revision ;  but  this  would  perhaps  give  him 
more  time  to  forget  than  to  acquire !  Yet  it  must  be  remembered  that 
we  have  no  such  indulgence  in  foreign  words  and  phrases  as  we  see  in 
the  revision  of  this  play  until  we  come  to  Henry  V  and  the  Merry  Wives. 
In  the  early  plays,  beyond  such  words  as  ergo,  sans,  perdie,  imprimus, 
which  one  learned  as  he  learned  English,  we  have  respice  finem  in  The 
Comedy  of  Errors  (in  a  scene  including  the  schoolmaster  Pinch  but  not 
spoken  by  him),  and  perhaps  one  or  two  phrases  in  the  Shakespearean 
parts  of  Titus  Andvonicus.  In  the  1590  portions  of  this  play  we  have 
niinime,  Veni,  vidi,  vici,  Allans,  and  the  equally  innocent  sans.  We  have 
the  "no  point"  pun  also ;  but  nothing  outside  of  Shakespeare's  custom 
before  1597  or  1598. 

109-122.  Biron's  hexameter  sonnet  accords  with  his  sentiments  in 
the  1590  version  of  the  play,  and  does  not  introduce  the  thought  which 
distinguishes  the  1597  portions, — that  love  itself  is  the  sufficient  justifi- 
cation for  the  breaking  of  such  vows  as  tlieirs.  Strangely  enough,  this 
idea  is  given  to  Longaville  in  his  love  sonnet ;  and  it  is  a  fair  assumption 
that  if  Shakespeare  had  written  a  new  sonnet  for  Biron  he  would  have 
given  him  this  sentiment.  It  is  somewhat  doubtful,  too,  if  he  would  have 
written  the  sonnet  in  hexameters  in  1597. 

Scene  iii,  line  3;  pitch.  Johnson:  "Alluding  to  Lady  Rosaline's 
complexion,  who  is  through  the  whole  play  represented  as  a  black  beauty." 
I  should  see  no  reason  to  suppose  that  Rosaline's  complexion  is  here  re- 
ferred to,  even  if  Dr.  Johnson's  suggestion  did  not  conflict  with  my  thesis. 

5.  If  this  refers  to  the  end  of  act  I,  scene  i,  then  they  say  should 
be  omitted ;  for  Biron  himself  is  the  only  one  who  could  have  heard  Cos- 
tard's words.  But  it  does  not  sound  like  an  original  remark  with  Costard 
in  the  first  place,  and  I  imagine  that  some  well-known  reference  was  in- 
tended. 

40,41.  This  extra  couplet,  added  to  a  sonnet  which  has  so  little  to 
do  with  the  particular  occasion  that  the  King  might  well  say,  "How  shall 
she  know  my  griefs?"  even  though  he  did  drop  the  paper,  may  indicate 


30  THE   ORIGINAL    VERSION    OF 

that  Shakespeare  used  a  love  sonnet  which  he  had  written  later,  in  place 
of  the  original  lyric,  and  added  the  couplet  for  the  revision  of  the  play. 
All  of  the  lovers'  poems  in  this  scene  far  excel  the  surrounding  dialogue; 
and,  except  for  Dumain's  ode,  the  superiority  seems  greater  than  we 
should  naturally  expect  from  their  being  set  poems. 

60-73.  It  is  not  only  the  superiority  of  Longaville's  sonnet  (the 
only  regular  sonnet  of  the  list)  tliat  makes  me  suspect  that  it  belongs  to 
the  revision.  The  sentiment  of  the  sonnet  is  in  accord  with  the  1597  por- 
tions of  Biron's  speech,  and  offers  an  excuse  for  perjury  which  is  out  of 
line  \vith  the  early  draft  of  the  play.  Dumain's  ode,  like  the  first  part  of 
Biron's  speech,  gives  only  the  plea:  "Vow,  alack,  for  youth  unmeet. 
Youth  so  apt  to  pluck  a  sweet."  But  the  author  of  this  sonnet  did  not 
need  to  ask  Biron  for  "some  authority  how  to  proceed ;  Some  tricks, 
some  quillets,  how  to  cheat  the  devil"  (lines  287,  288). 

88,  91.  These  purely  conventional  references  to  Katherine's  being 
a  "raven"  or  as  fair  as  "a  cloudy  day"  illustrate  how  far  Shakespeare 
could  go  in  applying  such  terms  to  a  lady  whom  apparently  he  did  not 
think  of  even  as  a  brunette.  Rosaline  calls  her  "My  red  dominical,  my 
golden  letter"  (V,  ii,  44). 

153-173.  Furnivall  cites  this  passage  as  one  of  the  unmistakable 
instances  of  the  early  work. 

186-188.  Biron  abruptly  starts  to  go  when  he  sees  Costard  and 
Jaquenetta  enter  with  a  letter  which  he  recognizes  as  his  own.  This,  I 
take  it,  is  part  of  the  preparation  for  the  reading  of  the  sonnet. 

194.  Nathaniel  did  not  say  the  letter  was  treason,  and  it  was  the 
Pedant  w'ho  sent  Jaquenetta  to  the  King. 

199.  That  the  letter  was  not  torn  to  bits  is  shown  by  Longaville's 
saying  "Let's  hear  it,"  and  consequently  I  should  omit  the  direction  Gath- 
ering up  the  pieces,  which  is  frequently  supplied  in  modern  editions.  It 
may  be  that  the  letter  was  read  by  one  of  the  others  after  Longaville's 
"Let's  hear  it."  It  would  be  possible  to  play  the  scene  so, — Longaville 
snatching  the  letter  and  Dumain  looking  over  his  shoulder,  while  the 
King  (by  his  authority)  keeps  Biron  from  interfering.  This  would  per- 
haps be  the  best  moment  dramatically ;  but  the  attention  of  the  audience 
would  be  so  much  centered  on  Biron  that  no  attention  would  be  paid  to 
the  sonnet  itself.  Or  perhaps  Biron  read  the  sonnet  after  line  213.  A 
bit  of  the  old  dialogue  may  be  lost  where  the  revision  begins. 

221.  Spedding  begins  here,  in  marking  the  additions,  and  includes 
"nearly  the  whole"  of  the  remainder  of  the  act. 

233-235.  It  is  interesting  to  find  the  dark  Rosaline  thus  convention- 
ally praised  for  her  brilliant  complexion.  Or  had  Shakespeare  still  not 
created  the  swarthy  Rosaline  ? 


"love's  labour's  lost"  31 

255.  To  the  many  substitutes  offered  for  school  of  night,  I  add, 
with  due  apologies,  one  more,  namely,  "sig)i  of  night."  My  only  excuse 
is  that  school  is  evidently  a  mistake,  and  I  cannot  read  the  passage  with 
any  of  the  various  words  that  have  been  suggested  (scowl,  stole,  shade, 
suit,  soil,  soul,  seal,  shroud,  veil,  cowl,  caul,  pall,  wall,  shell,  roll,  dowl, 
mail,  wheel,  shale,  scale,  etc.),  and  believe  that  Shakespeare  really  would 
have  used  that  word  in  this  place.  I  have  tried  each  word  with  hope  and 
rejected  it  with  despair.  The  word  I  offer  is  at  least  such  a  word  as  I 
believe  he  could  have  written ;  and  since  we  must  guess  something  in  or- 
der to  make  sense  of  the  passage,  let  us  make  as  innocent  a  guess  as 
possible. 

296,  297.     See  lines  318,  319  in  the  revision. 

299-304.  These  lines  are  usually  bracketed  because  of  their  repeti- 
tion and  expansion  in  320-323  and  350-354.  Except  Knight,  who  offered 
the  absurd  suggestion  that  the  repetition  was  intentional  for  oratorical 
effect,  all  have  agreed  that  the  lines  just  indicated  must  belong  to  the 
original  version,  left  in  the  amended  copy  by  mistake. 

309-317.  This  takes  up  the  third  of  the  three  points  mentioned  in 
line  292.  I  have  no  doubt  that  Shakespeare  intended  to  throw  away  this 
entire  passage,  290-317,  with  its  exactness  of  symmetry,  and  its  lack  of 
deep  conviction. 

316.  After  this  line  the  old  copies  have  the  extra  line,  "With  our 
selves,"  which  Staunton  (Edition,  1864)  believes  came  from  the  older 
version.  This  would  imply  that  the  surrounding  lines  did  not.  Most 
critics  believe  that  Shakespeare  did  not  write  the  words. 

318-354.  This  wonderful  burst  of  poetry  would  convince  anyone  who 
read  the  play  with  sufficient  care  and  appreciation  that  it  belonged  to  a 
later  writing  than  the  main  body  of  the  drama,  even  if  we  did  not 
have  the  words  on  the  title  page  nor  the  corresponding  lines  of  the  ear- 
lier version.  It  is  interesting  to  see  Shakespeare's  method  of  revision 
at  this  point.  He  begins  with  a  mere  paraphrasing  of  what  he  had  writ- 
ten, feeling  his  way,  as  it  were,  until  the  inspiration  seizes  him  and  bears 
him  aloft  into  the  pure  realms  of  fancy ;  there  he  soars  and  sings  like  a 
lark,  until,  at  last,  ready  to  descend,  he  comes  back  to  the  place  he  left 
and  alights  gracefully. 

368,  369.     This  clearly  refers  to  the  Muscovite  disguise. 

370-380.  The  lovers  are  still  planning  the  Muscovite  disguise  when 
we  next  hear  of  them  (V,  ii,  81f.),  and  Biron's  sentiments  here  are  a  dis- 
tinct anachronism.     Compare  lines  368,  369,  with  379,  380. 

ACT  V,  scene  i.  Spedding:  "The  whole  of  this  scene  between 
Holofernes  and  Sir  Nathaniel  bears  traces,  to  me.  of  the  maturer  hand, 
and  mav  have  been  inserted  bodily." 


32  THE   ORIGINAL   VERSION    OF 

2-6.  Johnson :  "I  know  not  well  what  degree  of  respect  Shake- 
speare intends  to  obtain  for  his  vicar,  but  he  has  here  put  into  his  mouth 
a  finished  representation  of  colloquial  excellence.  It  is  very  difficult  to 
add  anything-  to  his  character  of  the  schoolmaster's  table-talk,  and  per- 
haps all  the  precepts  of  Castiglione  will  scarcely  be  found  to  comprehend 
a  rule  for  conversation  so  justly  delineated,  so  widely  dilated,  and  so 
nicely  limited."  This  has  been  quoted  in  support  of  the  belief  that  the 
passage  belongs  to  the  revision.  Chalmers,  however,  gives  an  analogy 
from  Sidney's  Arcadia  (Furness,  p.  330),  with  the  comment,  "Here, 
then,  was  the  original,  in  1590,  from  which  Shakespeare  copied  in  1592." 
Drake,  arguing  for  the  date  1591,  gives,  "Secondarily,  that,  like  Pericles, 
it  occasionally  copies  the  language  of  the  Arcadia,  then  with  all  the  at- 
tractive novelty  of  its  reputation  in  full  bloom."  To  find  an  analogy  for 
this  particular  speech  does  not  help  us  much.  The  whole  scene  shows 
Shakespeare's  masterly  command  of  prose,  just  as  the  excerpt  from  Bi- 
ron's  speech  given  above  shows  his  poetic  power,  in  marked  contrast  to 
the  first  three  acts  of  the  play.  The  original  version  of  Love's  Labour's 
Lost  may  antedate  the  publication  of  the  Arcadia. 

15.     Peregrinate.    See  note  at  IV,  i,  146. 

24.  The  character  of  the  Pedant  should  settle  any  doubts  as  to  the 
pronunciation.  For  the  passage  to  have  any  point,  Shakespeare  must 
have  considered  that  d  e  t  had  triumphed,  but  that  debt  was  still  some- 
times insisted  upon  by  old-fashioned  purists.  Shakespeare  himself  rhymes 
the  word  with  Boyet.  That  Richard  Quiney  writes  of  his  "debettes" 
only  illustrates  the  familiar  fact  that  pronunciations  which  had  become 
obsolete  in  the  city  lasted  on  in  the  country  and  in  smaller  towns. 

28.  It  is  possible  that  infamy  should  be  retained,  and  the  passage 
mean :  It  suggests  villainy  to  me, — it  would  almost  drive  me  to  commit 
crime;  do  you  understand,  domine? — to  make  frantic,  lunatic — ?  This 
involves  the  change  of  of  to  to. 

31.  I  fear  that  Theobald's  ingenious  Bone? — bone  for  bene  in  place 
of  the  hopeless  original  Bonie  boon  for  boon,  with  its  necessary  change 
of  the  Curate's  bene  to  bone,  breaks  Priscian's  head,  while  the  Cambridge 
Bon,  bon,  fort  bon  does  not  explain  the  "scratch."  Rolfe  comments  that 
Nathaniel  has  previously,  as  well  as  here,  used  bene  correctly  (IV,  ii,  33). 
Holofernes  has  been  talking  of  pronunciation.     I  read  the  passage: 

Nath.     Laus  Deo,  bene  intelligo. 

Hoi.     Bene.    Bene  for  bene.    Priscian  a  little  scratched,  'twill  serve. 

39-46.  These  speeches  of  Moth  and  Costard,  especially  the  latter, 
scarcely  accord  with  the  characters  as  they  were  first  portrayed. 

76.  This  reference  to  a  passage  which  belongs  to  the  earlier  play 
is  so  unlike  what  we  find  in  most  of  the  later  portions  that  I  am  inclined 


"love's  LAiiouu's  lost"  33 

to  wonder  if  we  have  not  here  a  part  of  the  original  drama.  Moth  is  be- 
having quite  in  his  former  manner,  and  the  whole  passage  50-80  is  of  a 
piece  with  the  former  conversations  between  Moth  and  Armado.  Per- 
haps Armado's  hncs  were  sUghtly  revised  and  given  to  Holofernes;  for 
one  feels  still  that  there  is  an  inappropriateness  in  the  present  arrange- 
ment. If  this  passage  were  part  of  a  scene  rejected  in  the  revision,  then 
Costard's  lines,  IV,  i,  146-150,  which  are  there  out  of  place,  may  have 
been  a  part  of  the  same  scene. 

125.  The  quarto,  followed  by  the  folio,  has  Sir  Holofernes,  and  this 
is  the  only  place  in  the  entire  fifth  act  where  either  name  occurs.  There 
is  no  sufficient  reason  for  supposing  anything  else  than  tliat  Shakespeare, 
in  so  far  as  he  thought  of  names  at  all  in  connection  with  these  char- 
acters while  writing  the  fifth  act,  had  Sir  Holofernes  for  the  Curate.  See 
note  at  IV,  ii,  67.  I  cannot  believe  that  substituting  Holofernes  for  Na- 
thaniel is  the  sort  of  thing  that  a  compositor  could  ever  do ;  and  to  do  it 
twice  passes  the  limit  of  the  really  possible.  So  far  as  these  characters 
are  concerned,  Shakespeare  may  have  revised  backwards,  beginning  with 
the  masque.  It  was  for  the  sake  of  the  masque.  I  have  contended,  that 
the  new  characters  were  introduced,  and  it  was  entirely  natural  that  he 
should  think  of  them  first  as  "Pedant"  and  "Curate."  without  concerning 
himself  about  their  names.  It  is  very  odd  that  Biron  should  refer  to  the 
performers  of  the  masque  as  "The  pedant,  the  braggart,  the  hedge-priest, 
the  fool,  and  the  boy."  (V.  ii.  545.)  As  a  matter  of  fact,  a  character 
in  a  drama  should  not  refer  to  other  characters  in  the  same  drama  by 
their  conventional  stage  designations, — the  Pedant,  the  Braggart.  In 
writing  next  this  scene  of  preparation  for  the  new  masque,  Shakespeare 
may  have  felt  the  appropriateness  of  the  name  Holofernes  while  "the 
Pedant"  was  speaking,  and  written  it  in, — or  perhaps  only  have  written 
it  in  the  margin.  Various  things  might  explain  his  final  introduction  of 
the  names  into  act  I\',  scene  ii,  and  his  decision  to  reverse  them. 

127.  Read  "assistance."  The  entertainment  was  to  be  given  not  bv 
tlieir  assistants  but  by  themselves.  If  we  insert  the  at  we  should  also 
read  gentleman's. 

129.  Nothing  in  place  of  none.  Nathaniel's  reply  shows  that  this 
is  surely  the  correct  reading.  The  Pedant  is  talking  of  the  entertain- 
ment, not  of  the  casting  of  it,  in  this  speech. 

133.  Not  having  decided  as  yet  how  he  would  arrange  the  ^lasque 
of  the  Worthies,  Shakespeare  either  wrote  in  a  name  and  scratched  it  out. 
or  frankly  left  it  blank  for  the  present.  Read  "Joshua  yourself; 
myself ;  and  this  gallant  gentleman  Judas  Maccabacus." 

150.  Perhaps  this  line  led  Shakespeare  to  scratch  out  the  name  of 
the  Worthy  Holofernes  had  previously  selected  for  himself.     The  line 


34  THE   ORIGINAL   VERSION    OF 

may  have  been  due  to  each  actor's  presenting  three  Worthies  in  the  origi- 
nal masque.  It  does  not  anticipate  the  Dream,  for  it  is  only  amusing 
when  we  remember  Bottom. 

Scene  ii,  lines  12-29.  This  digression,  with  its  reference  to  Rosa- 
line's being  "a  beauty  dark,"  and  its  momentary  thought  of  death,  may 
belono^  to  the  revision.  But  the  "dark"  here  does  not  indicate  that  Shake- 
speare  tliought  of  Rosaline  as  more  than  a  pronounced  brunette,  con- 
trasting with  the  "golden"  Katherine;  and  the  "Well  bandied  both"  is 
like  other  praisings  of  his  own  wit  which  Shakespeare  put  into  the  early 
version.  Pater :  "The  lines  in  which  Katherine  describes  the  blighting 
through  love  of  her  younger  sister  are  one  of  the  most  touching  things  in 
older  literature."  The  1^/2  lines  are  not  above  Shakespeare's  powers  in 
1590.     (It  was  not  said  that  the  sister  was  younger.) 

42.  Fair  as  a  text  B  in  a  copy-hook  has  been  retained,  I  believe,  by 
all  editors,  and  B  has  been  explained  as  standing  for  black  or  Biron,  or 
as  due  to  S's  being  a  particularly  black  looking  letter  in  a  copy-book. 
Read  the  line,  "Fair  as  a  text.  Be  in  a  copy-book!"  "Beauteous  as  ink," 
says  the  Princess ;  and  Katherine  laughs,  "Fair  as  a  text.  The  place  for 
you  is  in  a  copy-book !" 

45.  It  does  not  seem  to  me  necessary  to  imagine  Katherine  marked 
with  smallpox.  The  jest  would  pass  as  a  mere  retort,  merely  as  a  way 
for  one  to  call  the  other  ugly. 

47.  I  should  write  To  Katherine  as  a  stage  direction  for  Katherine 
in  the  text.  The  word  has  been  omitted  by  some  editors,  as  it  obviously 
interferes  with  the  meter,  but  is  usually  retained.  It  is  easy  to  see  how 
the  word  crept  into  the  text. 

67.  Read,  "So  pertinent"  (i.  e.,  so  much  to  the  point).  Pertaunt 
like  (F)  or  perttaimt  like  (Q)  wins  an  obelus  in  the  Globe  Edition.  Of 
the  many  guesses  before  mine  I  prefer  Cartwright's  pert'nently.  This 
seems  to  me  the  most  appropriate  word ;  and  if  we  may  allow  here  the  ad- 
jective for  the  adverb,  as  we  must  so  often  in  Shakespeare,  we  have  a 
word  which  could  easily  have  been  mistaken  for  "perttaunt,"  and  the 
compositor  would  naturally  expand  this  into  "perttaunt  like"  both  for  the 
sake  of  the  meter  and  in  an  endeavor  to  make  sense. 

115.  Furnivall:  "It  has  the  certain  sign  of  early  work,  the  making 
of  the  King  and  his  nobles  forget  their  dignity,  and  roll  on  the  ground 
gufifawing  like  a  lot  of  hobbledehoys  at  the  rehearsal  of  their  Mask." 

227.  Furness :  "Unless  this  mean  that  she  bids  his  visor  a  double 
adieu,  as  wishing  never  to  see  it  again,  and  only  half  an  adieu  to  himself 
in  the  hope  that  it  is  not  a  full,  complete  farewell, — I  do  not  understand 
it."  But  the  ladies  are  set  upon  giving  not  the  least  encouragement,  and  be- 
sides this,  Rosaline  is  now  talking  not  with  her  lover  but  with  the  King. 


\ 


"love's  labour's  lost"  35 

The  adieu  is  a  courtesy  which  she  pays  twice  over  to  the  visor  in  order 
to  contrast  it  with  only  half  a  good-bye  to  the  King  himself,  which  is  as 
much  as  she  feigns  to  consider  him  worth.  So  at  line  388  she  says  to 
Biron,  "that  superfluous  case  That  hid  the  worse  and  show'd  the  better 
face."  Dickens  has  a  somewhat  similar  jest  in  Oliver  Tzi'ist:  "  'Make  a 
bow  to  the  gentleman,  Oliver,'  said  Mrs.  Mann.  Oliver  made  a  bow, 
which  was  divided  between  the  beadle  on  the  chair  and  the  cocked  hat  on 
the  table."  Sir  Sidney  Lee,  however,  gives  Furness's  explanation,  with- 
out questioning  and  without  crediting  it.     (Caxton  Shakespeare.) 

264.  I'^or  simple  I  read  subtle.  The  whole  spirit  of  the  piece  is 
against  the  King's  having  so  scornful  a  slur.  Biron  admits  that  he  is 
"dry-beaten  with  pure  scoff,"  and  the  King  could  scarcely  have  so  easy 
and  triumphant  an  exit  speech.  There  is  enough  innuendo  in  subtle  as 
Shakespeare  uses  it  to  make  the  word  appropriate  here. 

269.  Kingly-poor  flout  is  too  far  removed  from  the  King's  line  to 
refer  to  it.  The  Princess's  speech  refers  to  the  whole  encounter,  like 
Rosaline's  and  Boyet's  speeches  just  before,  and  hence,  as  she  did  not 
talk  with  the  King,  kingly-poor  is  not  appropriate.  I  should  prefer  Col- 
lier's MS.,  kill'd  by  pure  flout,  but  that  I  cannot  bring  myself  to  have  the 
lovers  killed  in  one  line  only  to  hang  themselves  in  the  next !  The  text 
is  garbled ;  and  probably  if  the  right  word  were  suggested  it  would  be 
uniformly  rejected  as  too  far  away  from  what  we  have  given  us.  Hart: 
"The  Princess  retorts  upon  Rosaline's  poverty  in  wit,  in  making  such  a 
grievous  pun  on  'king'  in  her  'weW-Yiking'.  .  .  .  Her  'kingly-poor'  is 
merely  'well-liking'  with  an  inserted  quibble."  But  unfortunately, 
Shakespeare  seems  to  have  applauded  his  puns  and  left  the  groaning 
for  us  to  do. 

277.  Is  it  possible  that  the  French  of  Stratford  atte  Bowe  still  flour- 
ished, and  that  enough  English  people  pronounced  French  as  it  was 
written  to  make  this  pun  comprehensible?  Capell  says:  "The  speaker 
that  would  convey  a  conception  of  Alaria's  wit  mu.st  pronounce  'point' 
something  in  the  French  manner,  but  inclining  to  point,  meaning — point 
of  a  sword."  I  should  like  to  hear  this  done.  Yet  it  occurs  not  only  here 
and  at  II,  i,  190,  but  sufficiently  often  in  other  dramas  to  show  that  the 
pun  was  possible  even  when  spoken.  It  would  not  carry  today  if  spoken 
before  an  audience  of  which  every  person  knew  French. 

279.  Read  cohn  for  qualm.  White :  "Plainly  'qualm'  was  pro- 
nounced calm,  which  gave  the  Princess  an  opportunity  for  her  jest;  for 
Longaville  would  surely  not  tell  his  mistress  that  she  "came  o'er  his  heart' 
like  a  qualm!"  Rolle  notes  "Sick  of  a  calm"  (2  Henry  11  \  II,  iv,  40). 
It  is  odd  that  die  Princess  should  say  "Go,  sickness  as  thou  art !"  Per- 


36  THE   ORIGINAL    VERSION    OF 

haps  this  should  go  to  RosaUne,  and  line  281  to  the  Princess,  which  would 
be  in  keeping"  with  the  general  relation  of  these  characters. 

315-334.  This  looks  like  an  insertion,  though  one  may  not  be  sure. 
It  is  not  at  all  an  apt  characterization  of  Boyet,  and  seems  to  proceed 
from  Shakespeare's  aversion  to  the  Osric  type  of  courtier  rather  than 
from  any  desire  to  disting-uish  Boyet.  Though  Shakespeare  seems  always 
to  have  had  these  sentiments  regarding  any  "monsieur  the  nice,"  the 
closest  analogy  to  the  present  passage  is  Hotspur's  tirade  (1  Henry  IV, 
I,  iii,  30-64),  written  about  the  time  of  the  revision  of  this  play.  The 
fact  that  the  speech  is  written  in  couplets  does  not  make  against  its  be- 
ing an  insertion.  Contrast  the  general  movement  of  the  lines  with  the 
couplets  above.  Five  run-on  lines  in  a  series  of  ten  couplets  (twenty- 
five  per  cent)  also  strongly  indicates  the  later  date.  Biron's  line  to  Boyet 
(552),  "Well  said,  old  mocker.  I  must  needs  be  friends  with  thee,"  be- 
longs to  the  1590  version,  and  rather  makes  against  than  for  this  expres- 
sion of  contempt.  Mercutio's  similar  characterization  of  the  fiery  Tybalt 
{Romeo  and  Juliet,  II,  iv,  19-37),  is  equally  inappropriate;  and  it  is 
equally  difficult  to  say  whether  it  belongs  to  the  earlier  or  later  draft. 

346-356.  This  is  "preparation,"  I  take  it,  for  the  final  outcome  of 
the  play  as  first  written.     See  note  at  II,  i,  105. 

414,  415.  In  speaking  of  evidences  of  the  play's  early  date  Fumi- 
vall  cites  these  lines,  though,  in  another  connection,  he  picks  out 
396-413  as  belonging  to  the  later  work.  Dr.  Furnivall  must  have  been 
judging  purely  by  his  likes  and  dislikes.  He  admired  396-413,  especially 
the  last  lines,  and  concluded  that  this  was  Shakespeare  at  his  best ;  he  did 
not  like  414,  415.  and  so  called  it  early;  but  the  passage,  taken  with  what 
follows,  cannot  be  thus  chopped  up.  I  see  no  reason  why  the  undeniable 
excellence  of  Biron's  speech  cannot  go  with  Shakespeare's  powers  in  1590. 

421.  Hart:  "As  applied  to  the  pestilence  the  benediction  [Lord 
have  mercy  on  iis\  seems  unknown  earlier  than  the  1592-1593  visitation. 
The  worst  previous  one  of  1563-1564  does  not  seem  to  have  adopted  it. 
.  .  .  This  plague  passage  is  not  consistent  with  the  received  date  of  the 
play.  I  suggest  that  this  is  a  later  insertion  (1593-4),  alluding  to  the 
1592  visitation."  These  "seems"  are  too  vague  to  give  us  any  assurance. 
The  connection  between  the  plague  and  the  prayer  for  mercy  is  too  nat- 
ural a  one  to  permit  us  to  ground  upon  it  any  date  for  their  occurrence 
together  in  a  drama. 

462.  I  think  without  question  the  line  "To  dash  it  like  a  Christmas 
comedy"  was  written  in  for  the  performance  "before  her  Highness  this 
last  Christmas."  The  reference  to  the  immediate  occasion  would  be  ap- 
preciated ;  and  it  illustrates  the  contrast  between  the  easy  carelessness 
of  the  revision  and  the  painstaking  exactitude  with  which  the  young  poet 


"love's  labour's  lost"  "SI 

worked  when  his  spurs  were  yet  to  win.  The  original  line,  of  course, 
rhymed  with  zany.  Capell  deliberately  omitted  the  word  slight  and  wrote 
zany,  so  as  to  get  this  lost  rhyme;  and  Furness  says:  "Uncouth,  nay. 
almost  abhorrent,  as  this  rhyme  sounds  to  us,  Capell  may  be  right." 
Walker  gives  the  line  as  "a  singular  mode  of  rhyming. — rhyming  to  the 
eye,  as  at  first  sight  it  appears  to  be."  If  my  conjecture  is  right,  and  I  see 
no  other  way  to  account  either  for  the  rhyme  or  the  sudden  reference  to 
"a  Christmas  comedy"  in  this  very  summer-like  drama,  it  indicates  clearly 
that  the  Muscovite  episode  belonged  to  the  original  version.  In  line  293, 
above,  we  have  "Blow  like  sweet  roses  in  this  summer  air." 

553-564.  The  reference  to  "Big"  recalls  Holofernes's  "this  swain, 
because  of  his  great  limb  or  joint"  (V,  i,  135),  and  suggests  that  the  actor 
cast  for  the  part  at  the  Christmas  performance  was  a  man  of  unusually 
large  build.  Hence  also  the  "Pompey  the  Huge"  of  line  691.  The  work 
after  line  552  seems  more  like  the  revision.  In  I,  i,  351,  Armado  refers  to 
Costard  as  a  "minnow,"  and  just  before.  Costard  speaks  of  himself  as  a 
man  that  dares  not  fight.  That  he  is  "resolute"  enough  in  the  revision, 
witness  lines  690-712  in  this  scene. 

569.     For  Your  nose  should  we  substitute  My  nose? 

581.  Malone:  "One  of  these  additions  may  have  been  the  passage 
which  seems  to  allude  to  The  Metamorphosis  of  Ajax,  by  Sir  John  Har- 
rington, printed  in  1596.  This,  however,  is  not  certain;  the  quibble  may 
not  have  originated  with  Harrington,  and  may  hereafter  be  found  in 
some  more  ancient  tract."  Hart:  "Sir  John  Harrington  may  have  bor- 
rowed his  quibble  from  this  passage,  but  likely  enough  it  was  common 
property  earlier."  That  Shakespeare  alludes  to  Harrington  has  been  the 
general  opinion.  The  passage  taken  by  itself  does  not  look  like  an  in- 
sertion. 

598.  The  line  suggests  Armado  rather  than  Holofernes.  The  Exit 
Boy  of  the  old  copies  was  retained  by  most  of  the  older  editors,  not  re- 
membering that  Moth  speaks  later.  Moth  must  surely  have  had  his  say 
in  the  original  version,  and  then  have  left;  his  speech  at  line  706  belongs 
w^ith  the  later  additions. 

599-634.  It  is  impossible  to  say  how  much  of  this  may  have  belonged 
to  the  original  writing.  Note  that  "I  Pompey  am,  Pompey  surnamed  the 
Great,"  and  "Judas  I  am.  ycliped  Maccabaeus,"  are  kindred  openings  in 
the  same  meter,  and  may  perhaps  indicate  the  style  of  the  original  masque. 

612-623.  I  presume  tiiat  some  of  this  was  in  the  1590  piece,  and 
more  was  added  in  the  revision,  but  it  is  impossible  to  distinguish.  Per- 
haps the  first  round  of  four  speeches  (614-617)  was  the  original  allot- 
ment. 


38  THE   ORIGINAL    VERSION    OF 

632-634.  My  warrant  for  regarding  this  as  early  is  not  so  much  the 
doggerel  as  the  characteristic  line  632,  which  is  much  more  in  Armado's 
tone  than  Holofernes's.  But  Armado's  verse  and  perhaps  a  bit  of  the 
dialogue  between  lines  617  and  629  are  probably  lost. 

670.  The  old  copies  have  Berozvne  steps  forth.  Some  editors  have 
omitted  the  words,  and  others  have  sent  both  Costard  and  Biron  off  stage. 
But  Shakespeare  knew  that  it  vv'ould  be  necessary  to  show  the  audience 
Biron's  plan  to  make  it  clear.  On  the  stage,  Biron  would  remain  speak- 
ing with  Costard  until  the  latter  speaks. 

678.  Furnivall:  "Arm.  has  known  Jaq.  11/2  days."  We  cannot  lay 
this  inconsistency  to  the  revision,  since  Shakespeare  always  recorded  the 
passing  of  time  in  this  manner,  whether  it  could  have  so  passed  or  not ; 
and  moreover,  we  are  not  told  that  Armado  first  meets  Jaquenetta  when 
he  finds  her  with  Costard  in  the  park. 

699,  712.  Another  indication  of  the  haste  of  the  revision  and  not  a 
discrepancy  between  the  two  versions.  Costard  was  the  aggressor,  which 
was  all  that  Dumain  had  in  mind. 

723.  Spedding :  "The  whole  close  of  the  fifth  act,  from  the  entrance 
of  Mercade,  has  been  probably  rewritten,  and  may  bear  the  same  relation 
to  the  original  copy  which  Rosaline's  speech  'oft  have  I  heard  of  you,  my 
lord  Berowne,'  etc.  [851-864]  bears  to  the  original  speech  [828-832]  which 
has  been  allowed  by  mistake  to  stand."  Schlegel :  "It  may  be  thought 
that  the  poet,  when  he  suddenly  announces  the  death  of  the  King  of 
France,  and  makes  the  Princess  postpone  the  answer  to  the  young  Prince 
.  .  .  falls  out  of  the  proper  comic  tone.  But  from  the  raillery  which  pre- 
vails throughout  the  whole  piece  it  was  hardly  possible  to  bring  about  a 
more  satisfactory  conclusion ;  the  characters  would  return  to  sobriety 
after  their  extravagance  only  by  means  of  some  foreign  influence." 
Hertzberg:  "But  the  question  has  its  serious  side.  Frivolity  which  sports 
with  oaths,  which  neglects  the  interests  of  state,  the  needful  work  for 
human  society,  in  order  to  indulge  in  selfish  whims, — this  is  not  expiated 
and  healed  in  making  itself  ridiculous.  Wherefore,  this  comedy  cannot 
end  as  others  end;  it  must  have  a  serious  perspective."  Originally  the 
frivolity  was  expiated  and  healed.  The  revision  sacrifices  this  in  order  that 
the  characters  may  "return  to  sobriety  after  their  extravagance." 

749.  This  is  all  the  reference  we  have  to  the  mission  of  the  Princess 
and  its  accomplishment.  The  line  does  not  seem  like  a  relic  of  the  earlier 
writing,  incorporated  in  a  passage  which  obviously  belongs  to  the  revis- 
ion ;  but  much  of  this  may  be  merely  revised  and  not  added  bodily. 

763.  As  at  the  close  of  his  protestation  earlier  in  this  scene  (406- 
415),  that  he  will  express  himself  henceforth  "In  russet  yeas  and  honest 
kersey  noes,"  Rosaline  has  immediately  to  answer  "Sans  'sans,'  I  pray 


"love's  labour's  lost"  39 

you" ;  so  here  we  have  for  his  "honest  plain  words"  the  most  involved 
passag^e  in  the  whole  play.  This  may  have  been  intentional,  and  hence  we 
should  be  particularly  careful  in  amending.  I  should,  however,  adopt 
Capell's  It  hath  (T  hath)  for  Have  in  line  778,  and  Pope's  them  in  line 
780.  No  one  will  complain  that  the  speech  is  too  simple  with  these  slight 
changes. 

774,  775.  Furness :  "We  here  see  the  same  hand  that  afterwards 
wrote,  'The  Poet's  eye  in  a  fine  frenzy  rolling,  doth  glance  From  heauen 
to  earth,  from  earth  to  heauen.' — Mid.  N.  D.,  V,  i,  14."  This  was  not  in- 
tended, I  am  sure,  as  implying  that  this  particular  passage  belongs  to  the 
early  version,  when  it  so  obviously  does  not.  But  it  illustrates  the  con- 
fusion which  so  often  attends  chronological  references  to  this  play. 

800-808.  These  lines  may  well  belong  to  the  original  play.  Note 
the  contrast  both  in  tone  and  meter  to  the  lines  which  precede  them. 

827-832.  These  lines  are  usually  bracketed  in  modern  texts  because 
they  are  given  in  the  expanded  form  of  the  revision  in  847-879. 

834.  Read,  "Kath.  A  wife,  a  beard,  fair  health ;  and  honestly." 
The  Cambridge  Editors  have  been  generally  followed  in  giving  the  words 
A  zvife?  to  Dumain,  which  has  the  double  advantage  of  keeping  the  inter- 
rogation point  and  honesty,  for  which  I  have  had  to  substitute  honestly, 
much  against  my  wishes.  But  it  is  so  much  better  for  Katherine  to  wish 
Dumain  "A  wife,  a  beard,  and  fair  health,"  rather  than  "A  beard,  fair 
health,  and  honesty,"  that  I  am  driven  to  my  reading ;  and  my  alteration 
is  less  than  the  other.  Hart  avoids  the  "threefold"  by  putting  an  excla- 
mation point  after  A  zvife,  and  comments,  "The  [Cambridge  Editors'] 
alteration,  besides  being  wrong  in  principle,  spoils  the  effect  of  Dumain's 
'I  thank  you.  gentle  wife.'  " 

843,  844.  One  may  with  confidence  supply  a  lost  line  of  Shakespeare : 
"Long.  And  what  to  me,  my  love?  and  what  to  me?"  Maria's  answer 
in  the  original  version  has  been  lost ;  but  I  think  it  probable  that  845,  846 
were  taken  over  from  the  early  play. 

851-879.  \Miat  was  Rosaline  to  do  during  this  year?  She  was  much 
more  "replete  with  mocks"  and  "wounding  flouts"  than  poor  Biron. 

880.  881.  These  lines  surely  followed  832.  Biron's  "Fll  jest  a  twelve- 
month in  a  hospital"  is  utterly  inappropriate  after  this  more  serious  pas- 
sage. Nothing  in  the  play  shows  more  clearly  how  hastily  and  carelessly 
Shakespeare  joined  his  new  material  to  his  old. 

882.  It  is  presumable  that  this  line  rhymed  with  one  now  lost,  but 
this  is  by  no  means  certain. 

884-888.  Hence  the  title  of  the  drama.  See  Introduction.  Furness 
(Preface,  xviii)  :  "We  doubt  much  that  this  voice  [of  love]  will  echo 
in  his  soul  throughout  his  year  of  penance.     His  fertile  wit  will  devise 


40  "love's  labour's  lost" 

many  a  mean  to  stifle  it  should  his  task  to  move  wild  laughter  in  the 
throat  of  death  prove  too  irksome.  His  present  love's  lal3our  will  be  lost, 
and  Jack  will  never  have  his  Jill."  This  I  believe  would  be  a  fair  con- 
clusion from  the  first  version  of  the  play ;  but  the  revision  w-as  not  meant 
to  leave  any  such  impression.  It  is  the  older  plan  still  showing  through, 
and  the  original  title  still  retained,  that  must  have  given  Dr.  Furness  this 
impression. 


A  CONJECTURE  AS  TO 

"LOVE'S  LABOUR'S  WON" 


A  CONJECTURE  AS  TO  "LOVE'S  LABOUR'S  WON" 

The  method  which  Shakespeare  employed  in  revising  Love's  Labour's 
Lost  may  have  been  somewhat  his  method  in  revising  Love's  Labour's 
Won.  ¥ov  though  we  do  not  know  that  we  possess  the  companion  ]Mece 
to  Love's  Labour's  Lost  in  its  revised  form,  it  is  a  natural  enough  assump- 
tion that  the  only  play  mentioned  by  Meres  of  which  we  have  no  other 
trace  was  the  first  cast  of  some  comedy  which  was  put  into  its  present 
form  after  1598.  I  shall  go  farther  without  encountering  serious  preju- 
dice, I  am  sure,  if  I  take  it  for  granted  that  Love's  Labour's  Won  was 
probably  written  immediately  after  Love's  Labour's  Lost ;  and  hence  that 
the  two  comedies  it  most  nearly  resembled  were  the  original  draft  of 
Love's  Labour's  Lost  and  TJic  Comedy  of  Errors. 

To  a  slight  extent,  it  must  be  conceded,  the  results  we  have  arrived 
at  regarding  Love's  Labour's  Lost  lend  color  to  a  contention  in  the 
Quarterly  Revieiv  (LXV,  481)  that  this  play  had  a  double  title:  "Love's 
Labours — comic  labours — are  both  lost  and  won:  lost  because  they  led 
to  a  year  of  penance ;  and  zvon,  because,  at  the  end  of  that  year,  they  were 
to  receive  their  reward."  We  might  substitute  for  this  that  they  were 
lost  in  1590  and  ivon  in  1597;  that  the  title  of  the  drama  as  given  before 
Elizabeth  may  have  been  Love's  Labour's  Won, — the  play  being  revised 
sufficiently  to  warrant  this  change  of  name ;  and  that  the  original  title  was 
restored  in  the  Quarto.  But  there  is  no  evidence  for  all  this,  and  the  pre- 
sumption is  decidedly  against  it. 

I  shall  not  recount  the  various  arguments  which  have  been  put  for- 
ward to  establish  the  identity  of  one  or  another  comedy  with  the  missing 
Love's  Labour's  Won.  These  arguments  are  fairly  and  fully  stated  in 
Professor  Tolman's  paper  on  the  subject.^  Regarding  Professor  Tol- 
man's  own  choice,  The  Taming  of  the  Shre^w,  three  comments  might  be 
made  in  addition  to  the  obvious  and  familiar  ones  that  Petruchio's  labor 
is  scarcely  one  of  love,  and  that  the  theme,  the  type  of  plot,  the  character- 
ization, and  indeed  the  whole  tone  and  movement  of  the  two  plays  are 
widely  different.  These  rejoinders  to  the  special  form  the  theory  takes 
in  this  last  and  fullest  statement  of  it  are:  that  The  Taming  of  the  Shrew 
in  all  probability  reached  its  present  form  before  1598,  and  hence  Meres 


1  Hamlet  and  Other  Essays,  pp.  245-313. 


44  A    CONJECTURE    AS    TO 

would  not  have  referred  to  it  by  its  previous  title ;  that  there  is  no  reason 
why  the  Shrew  should  be  named  among  the  plays  of  which  Shakespeare 
was  the  original  author  and  not  the  reviser ;  -  and  that  there  is  no  need 
to  apologize  for  Shakespeare's  extensive  use  of  A  Shrezv,  nor  to  explain 
it  as  a  "reclaiming  of  his  own,"  inasmuch  as  no  question  of  literary  pro- 
prietorship entered  into  the  matter.  If  Shakespeare  was  set  the  task  of 
revising  A  Shrezv,  or  rather  the  Christopher  Sly  and  Katherine  and 
Petruchio  portions  of  it,  there  was  no  reason,  ethical  or  other,  why  he 
should  not  retain  as  much  of  the  old  material  as  he  could.  He  contributed 
his  new  lines  to  the  old  play ;  he  made  no  claim  of  his  own  upon  a  drama 
which  was  now  to  be  acted  under  a  title  almost  identical  with  the  old  one. 
The  play  was  still  the  company's  play,  improved  by  somebody. 

In  spite  of  clever  arguments  which  have  been  put  forward  in  favor  of 
Much  Ado  and  other  comedies,  The  Taming  of  the  Shrezv  remains  the 
only  serious  rival  of  All's  Well  that  Ends  Well  for  the  distinction  of  being 
the  revised  Love's  Labour's  Won.  The  arguments  in  favor  of  All's  Well 
are  obvious  and  cogent,  and  the  objections  to  it,  though  quite  fatal,  are 
few.  It  is  all  but  universally  acknowledged  that  there  exist  side  by  side 
in  this  play  passages  so  different  in  style  that  the  normal  if  not  the  only 
way  to  account  for  them  is  to  assign  some  to  Shakespeare's  earliest  period 
and  the  others  to  a  much  later  time.  We  are  asked  to  notice  the  incon- 
sistencies in  the  character  drawing  and  in  the  structure  of  the  play,  and 
the  abundance  of  rhyme  and  euphuism  in  the  seemingly  early  portions. 
All  other  considerations  may  be  set  aside  if  this  fundamental  matter  is 
disposed  of ;  for  the  aptness  of  the  title  "Love's  Labour's  Won"  and  such 
other  minor  matters  as  have  been  brought  out  by  various  critics  are  only 
worthy  of  mention  in  view  of  this  main  argument :  given  a  comedy  which 
shows  Shakespeare's  early  characteristics  in  some  passages  badly  joined 
to  other  passages  obviously  in  his  later  manner,  and  there  is  no  need  to 
look  farther  for  the  early  play  Love's  Labour's  Won. 

Professor  Tolman's  objection  is  that  no  preliminary  draft  of  All's 
Well  that  Ends  Well  could  ever  have  been  a  companion  piece  to  Love's 
Labour's  Lost.  "The  central  situation  of  All's  Well,  the  desperate  venture 
of  the  indomitable  Helena,  would  be  intolerable  if  treated  in  the  tone  of 
easy  banter  that  distinguishes  Love's  Labour's  Lost."  In  answer  to  this  it 
might  be  said  that  what  is  intolerable  to  us  was  not  always  intolerable  to 
the  Elizabethans ;  moreover,  we  have  no  means  of  knowing  how  com- 
plete or  fundamental  a  change  might  have  been  made  in  the  revision ;  nor 
may  we  safely  assume  that  the  young  Shakespeare   was  incapable  of 


^  See  the  present  writer's  article  on  "The  Authorship  of  Titus  Andronicus"  in 
the  Fliigel  Memorial  Volume,  Stanford  University  Series,  p.  115. 


"love's  labour's  won"  45 

affectiiii.f  a  deliberate  contrast  in  his  balanced  pair  of  comedies:  Love's 
Labour's  Lost  displaying  nothing-  but  careless  chaff  and  banter;  Love's 
Labour's  Won,  perversely,  affecting  the  ironic  and  sardonic. 

Unlikely  as  this  is,  I  feel  that  the  claim  of  All's  Well  easily  topples 
over  the  objection  if  the  claim  itself  is  sound.  It  is  just  this  which  I 
flatly  deny.  I  can  find  absolutely  no  trace  in  this  play  of  Shakespeare's 
earliest  manner.  When  one  reads  All's  Well,  some  parts  do  show  in 
striking  contrast  to  the  rest ;  but  I  refuse  to  believe  that  any  student  with 
an  ear  for  Shakespeare's  changing  cadence  came  fresh  from  the  study 
of  Love's  Labour's  Lost  and  found  in  All's  Well  a  single  passage  which 
reminded  him  of  the  earlier  comedy.  Let  me  place  a  few  lines  of  blank 
verse  from  an  "early"  passage  in  All's  Well  side  by  side  with  the  opening 
lines  of  the  original  version  of  Love's  Labour's  Lost: 

Bertram.     My  lord,  this  is  a  fond  and  desperate  creature, 
Whom  sometimes  I  have  laughed  with.    Let  your  highness 
Lay  a  more  noble  thought  upon  mine  honour 
Than  for  to  •"'  think  that  I  would  sink  it  here. 

King.    Sir,  for  my  thoughts,  you  have  them  ill  to  friend 
Till  your  deeds  gain  them.     Fairer  prove  your  honour 
Than  in  my  thought  it  lies. 

All's  Well,  V,  iii,  178-184. 

King.    Our  late  edict  shall  strongly  stand  in  force. 
Navarre  shall  be  the  wonder  of  the  world. 
Our  court  shall  be  a  little  Academe, 
Still  and  contemplative  in  living  art 
You  three,  IJiron,  Dumain,  and  Longaville. 
Have  sworn  for  three  years'  term  to  live  with  me 
My  fellow-scholars,  and  to  keep  those  statutes 
That  are  recorded  in  this  schedule  here. 
Your  oaths  are  passed  ;  and  now  subscribe  your  names, 
That  his  own  hand  may  strike  his  honour  down 
That  violates  the  smallest  branch  herein. 

L.  L.  L.,  T.  i,  11-21. 

Let  me  now  bring  two  prose  passages  together,  both  presumably 
illustrating  the  artificial  and  affected  style  of  the  young  Shakespeare : 

Steward.  Aladam,  1  was  very  late  more  near  her  than  I  think 
she  wish'd  me.  Alone  she  was,  and  did  communicate  to  herself  iier 
own  words  to  her  own  ears ;  she  thought.  I  dare  vow  for  her,  they 
touch'd  not  any  stranger  sense.  Her  matter  was,  she  lov'd  your 
son.  Fortune,  she  said,  was  no  goddess,  that  had  put  such  difference 
betwixt  their  two  estates ;  Love,  no  god,  that  would  not  extend  his 
might,  onlv  where  qualities  were  level ;    Diana,  no  queen  of  virgins. 


3  Boyle  calls  attention  to  this  "lor  to"  as  an  added  proof.    Englische  Studien, 
XIV,  p.  415. 


46  A    CONJECTURE    AS    TO 

that  would  suffer  her  poor  knight  surpris'd,  without  rescue  in  the 
first  assault  or  ransom  afterward.  This  she  deliver'd  in  the  most 
bitter  touch  of  sorrow  that  e'er  I  heard  virgin  exclaim  in ;  which  I 
held  my  duty  speedily  to  acquaint  you  \vithal ;  sithence,  in  the  loss 
that  may  happen,  it  concerns  you  something  to  know  it. 

All's  Well,  I,  iii,  110-126. 

Biroii.  The  King  he  is  hunting  the  deer.  I  am  coursing  myself; 
they  have  pitched  a  toil,  T  am  toiling  in  a  pitch, — pitch  that  defiles ; — 
defile !  a  foul  word.  Well,  "set  thee  down,  sorrow !"  for  so  they 
say  the  fool  said,  and  so  say  I,  and  I  the  fool :  well  proved,  wit ! 
By  the  Lord,  this  love  is  as  mad  as  Ajax.  It  kills  sheep;  it  kills  me, 
I  a  sheep :  well  proved  again  o'  my  side !  I  will  not  love ;  if  I  do, 
hang  me ;  i'  faith,  I  will  not.  O,  but  her  eye, — by  this  light,  but  for 
her  eye,  I  would  not  love  her ;  yes,  for  her  two  e3^es.  Well,  I  do 
nothing  in  the  world  but  lie,  and  lie  in  my  throat.  By  heaven,  I  do 
love ;  and  it  hath  taught  me  to  rhyme  and  to  be  melancholy ;  and 
here  is  part  of  my  rhyme,  and  here  my  melancholy.  Well,  she  hath 
one  of  my  sonnets  already ;  the  clown  bore  it,  the  fool  sent  it,  and 
the  lady  hath  it :  sweet  clown,  sweeter  fool,  sweetest  lady !  By  the 
world,  I  would  not  care  a  pin,  if  the  other  three  were  in.  Here 
comes  one  with  a  paper ;  God  give  him  grace  to  groan ! 

L.  L.  L.,  IV,  iii,  1-21. 

But,  as  it  is  the  abundance  of  rhyme  in  All's  IVcll  that  has  chiefly 

constituted  its  claim,  let  us  by  all  means  bring  forth  the  passage  most 

frequently  cited  as  illustrative  of  the  early  style  of  Shakespeare,  and  have 

with  it  some  of  his  genuinely  early  rhyme : 

King.     Art  thou  so  confident?     Within  what  space 
Ilop'st  thou  my  cure  ? 

Helena.     The  great'st  Grace  lending  grace. 
Ere  twice  the  horses  of  the  sun  shall  bring 
Their  fiery  torcher  his  diurnal  ring, 
Ere  twice  in  murk  and  occidental  damp 
Moist  Hesperus  hath  quench'd  her  sleepy  lamp. 
Or  four  and  twenty  times  the  pilot's  glass 
Hath  told  the  thievish  minutes  how  they  pass. 
What  is  infirm  from  your  sound  parts  shall  fly, 
Health  shall  live  free  and  sickness  freely  die. 

All's  Well,  II,  ii,  162-171. 

With  that,  all  laugh'd  and  clapp'd  him  on  the  shoulder. 

Making  the  bold  wag  by  their  praises  bolder. 

One  rubb'd  his  elbow  thus,  and  fleer'd  and  swore 

A  better  speech  was  never  spoke  before ; 

Another  with  his  finger  and  his  thumb, 

Cried,  "Via !  we  will  do't,  come  what  will  come ;" 

The  third  he  caper'd,  and  cried,  "All  goes  well ;" 

The  fourth  turn'd  on  the  toe,  and  down  he  fell. 

With  that,  they  all  did  tumble  on  the  ground." 

L.  L.  L.,  V,  ii,  107-115. 


"love's  labour's  won"  47 

It  is  to  be  freely  admitted  that  the  subject-matter  and  the  character 
of  the  speaker  tend  to  accentuate  the  differences  between  the  passages 
which  1  have  brought  together.  iJut  allowing  fully  for  this,  and  with  the 
sincere  desire  to  come  at  the  truth  of  the  matter,  it  is  certainly  demon- 
strable that  a  greater  difference  separates  the  reputedly  early  passages 
in  All's  Well  from  the  undeniably  early  passages  in  Love's  Labour's  Lost 
than  can  justly  be  claimed  for  different  passages  within  the  play  itself. 
This  could  not  be  the  case  if  the  first  cast  of  All's  Well  had  been  the  twin 
comedy  we  are  in  search  of.  When  one  has  separated  the  additions  of 
1597  from  the  original  version,  it  is  no  longer  possible  to  find  any  kin- 
ship between  the  genuine  Love's  Lubour's  Lost  and  this  masquerading 
Love's  Labour's  Won. 

This  is  not  the  place  to  examine  the  fascinating  and  maddening  prob- 
lem of  the  composition  of  All's  Well  that  Ends  Well.  I  remark  merely 
that  some  of  its  supposedly  early  prose,  with  its  involved  construction 
and  unusual  diction,  is  more  like  the  prose  of  Cymbaline  than  that  of  the 
early  plays ;  that  the  blank  verse  in  one  scene  (I,  iii)  usually  listed  among 
the  Love's  Labours  Won  portions  reaches  35  per  cent  of  double  ending.6  ;* 
that  Helena's  letter  of  farewell,  written  in  the  form  of  a  sonnet,  is  to  be 
viewed  in  the  light  of  the  fact  that  this  is  not  like  those  sonnets  of 
Shakespeare  which  we  have  most  reason  to  regard  as  early ;  that  some 
of  the  rhymes  which  have  been  cited  in  proof  of  early  composition  (II, 
i,  152  f.)  are  not  unlike  the  sententious  couplets  in  Othello  (I,  iii,  202  f.), 
and  that  other  rhymed  passages,  such  as  Helena's  soliloquy  at  the  close 
of  the  opening  scene,^'  with  its  six  run-on  lines  out  of  fourteen  (43  per 
cent!)  is  more  in  the  swing  of  Time's  Chorus  in  The  Winter's  Tale  than 
it  is  in  the  trotting  meter  of  the  early  plays. 

The  mechanical  tests  for  determining  the  order  of  Shakespeare's 
dramas  are  never  more  than  suggestive  or  mutually  corroborative. 
Where  there  exists  a  conflict  between  them,  as  where  the  rhymed  pas- 
sages abound  in  run-on  lines,  we  must  necessarily  choose  between  them ; 
and  the  mere  fact  of  rhyme  seems  to  me  much  less  significant  than  so 
decided  a  characteristic  as  is  reflected  by  an  abundance  of  run-on  lines. 
The  percentage  of  the  latter*^  shows  a  more  steady  progress  than  is 
indicated  by  any  of  the  other  tests.     Allowing  for  such  a  slight  fluctua- 


*  "Before  1598,  feminine  endings  never  reach  twenty  per  cent  of  the  total 
number  of  pentameter  lines ;  after  that  date  they  are  practically  always  above  that 
number,  and  show  a  fairly  steady  increase  to  the  thirty-five  per  cent  of  The 
Tempest."    Neilson  and  Thorndike's  The  Facts  About  Shakespeare,  p.  74. 

s  Quoted  by  Brandes  and  otiiers  as  belonging  to  Love's  Labour's  Won. 

8  According  to  the  table  in  Neilson  and  Thorndike's  The  Facts  about  Shake- 
speare, p.  71. 


48  A    CONJECTURE   AS    TO 

tion  as  we  should  naturally  expect,  this  test  accords  with  an  order  of 
the  plays  almost  exactly  as  we  would  have  it.  The  only  notable  excep- 
tions are  that  it  brings  All's  Well  down  to  the  time  of  Lear,  where  I 
should  personally  prefer  to  place  it,  and  sends  Tivclfth  Night  forward  to 
the  end  of  the  first  period,  which  anticipates  what  I  am  now  to  speak  of. 
The  IVinter's  Tale  and  The  Tempest  would  be  moved  three  plays  up,  and 
Loir's  Labour's  Lost,  owing  to  the  later  additions,  would  come  some 
distance  down;'  As  You  Like  It  and  Othello  fall  three  or  four  per  cent 
under  their  due  allowance ;  but  none  of  these  variations  is  beyond  a 
normal  departure  from  a  constantly  increasing  tendency.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  "rhyme  test,"  as  shown  in  Furnivall's  table  of  proportions  com- 
puted from  Fleay's  countings,^  brings  the  Merry  Wives  next  to  the 
Comedy  of  Errors,  Tzvelfth  Night  before  The  Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona, 
Richard  III  and  The  Merchant  of  Venice  next  to  Measure  for  Measure 
and  Cymbaline,  and  makes  Julius  Caesar  the  last  but  two  of  all  the  plays 
wholly  Shakespeare's. 

It  is  my  belief  that  there  are  more  convincing  reasons  for  regarding 
Twelfth  Night  as  the  play  which  grew  out  of  the  early  Love's  Labour's 
Won  than  can  be  put  forward  in  the  support  of  any  other  claimant  for 
this  doubtful  honor. 

The  Rev.  F.  G.  Fleay  made  so  many  conjectures  regarding  Shakes- 
peare that  it  would  be  odd  if  his  extensive  learning  and  nimble  intellect 
had  not  led  him  into  many  a  true  one.  Mr.  Fleay  regarded  All's  Well 
as  the  revision  of  Love's  Labour's  Won  until  Brae's  argument  (which 
leaves  me  quite  unmoved)  took  him  over  to  Much  Ado ;  but  he  believed 
that  Tzvelfth  Night  show's  two  distinct  plots  which  are  easily  separable, 
and  that  this  indicates  that  the  play  was  written  at  two  different  periods. 
The  main  plot — that  of  the  Duke,  Sebastian,  Antonio,  Viola,  Curio,  Val- 
entine, and  the  Captain, — Fleay  assigns  at  different  times  to  different 
years,  the  earliest  he  suggested  being  1593.  Beyond  what  he  considered 
"the  young,  fresh,  clear  poetry  of  Shakespeare's  early  time,  the  time  of 
A  Midsummer-Night's  Dream,  his  first  period,"  Fleay  found  evidences 
of  early  authorship  in  "the  singular  agreement  of  the  plot  with  the 
Comedy  of  Errors  in  the  likeness  of  the  twins,  and  with  the  Ttvo  Gentle- 
men of  Verona,  or  rather  with  Apolonius  and  Silla,  whence  part  of  that 
plot  was  derived;"  and  evidences  of  revision  in  II,  iv,  1-14,  "where  Viola 
was  evidently  intended  to  be  the  singer,"  and  also  in  the  fact  that  "Duke 


'■  My  own  counting  of  the  run-on  lines  in  the  original  version  of  L.  L.  L. 
gives  a  notably  smaller  percentage  than  any  of  the  plays  receive  in  the  table  cited 
above.  The  method  of  counting  run-on  lines  will  differ  with  each  counter;  but 
by  any  method  the  great  majority  of  the  run-on  lines  falls  in  the  later  additions. 

*  Transactions  of  the  New  Shakespeare  Society,  1874,  pp.  32,  ZZ. 


"love's  labour's  won"  49 

in  this  play  is  synonymous  with  Count,  as  it  is  with  Emperor  in  The  Two 
Gentlemen  of  Verona,  and  with  Kinj^^  in  Love's  Labour's  Lost.  Shake- 
speare does  not  commit  this  mistake  in  plays  written  after  1595."* 

It  is  odd  that  Fleay  did  not  draw  the  natural  conclusion  that  the 
first  writing  of  Tzcelfth  Night  was  Love's  Labour's  Won.  But  there  is 
little  in  his  argument  which  gives  me  'comfort  in  now  putting  forward 
this  conjecture;  for  the  scparableness  of  the  two  plots  applies  also  to 
Much  Ado  and  to  Troilus  and  Cressida ;  the  confusion  of  Duke  and 
Count  leads  us  nowhere ;  the  shifting  of  the  song  from  Viola  to  Feste 
might  have  been  a  last-minute  adjustment;  and  I  see  little  either  in  the 
thought  or  style  of  the  play  which  is  not  appropriate  to  the  usually  ac- 
cepted date  of  1601. 

It  does  seem  to  me,  however,  a  matter  of  real  significance  that  the 
main  plot  of  Twelfth  Night  so  clearly  belongs  to  what  Furnivall  calls 
"the  first  or  Mistaken-Identity  group  of  plays,"  ^"  and  that  it  ])resents 
us  with  the  only  story  in  Shakespeare's  later  comedies  which  naturally 
belongs  with  Love's  Labour's  Lost  and  The  Comedy  of  Errors.  If 
Tzvelfth  Night  furnished  us  with  evidences  of  revision,  then  it  would  be 
a  natural  supposition  that  the  first  version  of  the  play  dated  from  the 
time  of  the  comedies  which  are  most  like  it  in  plot.  There  are  some 
evidences  of  revision ;  and  they  are  sufficiently  well  marked  to  be  worthy 
of  careful  consideration. 

It  may  be  noted,  first  of  all.  that  the  shifting  of  the  song  which  had 
obviously  been  intended  for  \'iola  is  the  more  odd  inasmuch  as  she 
herself  says, 

"For  I  can  sing, 
And  speak  to  him  in  many  sorts  of  music"  (I.  ii.  57,  58). 

But  what  gives  force  to  the  claim  that  the  change  was  not  due  to  such 
contemporary  revision  as  plays  constantly  undergo  at  rehearsal  is  that  a 
difference  in  the  verse  is  discernible  within  the  scene  itself.  I  should 
give  to  the  earlier  writing  lines  1-7,  83-109  (somewhat  touched  up,  per- 
haps), and  the  concluding  couplet,  126,  127.  Now  in  this  scene  there 
occurs  a  frequently  noted  contradiction.  Furness  quotes  the  Cowden- 
Clarkes  as  saying,  "The  Duke  one  moment  owns  his  sex's  fickleness,  the 
next  maintains  its  superior  strength  of  passion ;  in  one  speech,  proclaims 
women's  greater  constancy ;  in  another,  accuses  them  of  incapacity  for 
steady  attachment."  The  obvious  answer  is  that  given  by  Innes:  "The 
Duke, — very  properly  and  entirely  in  character, — makes  two  flatly  con- 


»  This,  and  whatever  else  is  needed  to  get  Fleay's  point  of  view,  is  quoted  by 
Furness. 

10  Old  Spelling  Shakespeare  L.  L.  L.,  p.  v. 


50  A    CONJECTURE   AS    TO 

tradictory  statements  .  .  /'  "  This  is  all  very  well  as  an  interpretation 
of  a  thing  that  is ;  but  a  possible  explanation  of  how  the  contradiction 
happened  to  creep  in  we  may  find  in  that  the  first  sentiment  belongs 
unquestionably  to  the  revision  and  the  other  sentiment  to  the  original 
play ;  and  it  really  is,  I  believe,  more  like  Shakespeare  to  write  in  an  idea 
in  his  contemporary  attitude  without  regard  to  the  resulting  contradic- 
tion than  to  characterize  Orsino  by  giving  him  such  a  subtle  conflict  of 
ideas  as  we  have  here.  It  is  to  be  noted  that  the  conflicting  sentiments 
occur  in  the  contrasting  types  of  verse. 

A  much  more  noticeable  contrast  is  to  be  found  between  Viola's  first 
visit  to  Olivia  in  act  I,  scene  v,  and  her  second  visit  in  act  III,  scene  i. 
A  comparison  of  these  two  scenes  has  led  me  to  the  conviction  that  the 
first  may  have  been  intended  as  a  revision  of  the  second ;  that  act  III, 
scene  i,  lines  95-117  and  141  to  the  end  of  the  scene  might  well  represent 
the  first  meeting  of  Viola  and  Olivia  in  the  comedy  of  Love's  Labour's 
Won;  and  that,  if  this  is  the  case,  Shakespeare  may  afterwards  have  de- 
cided to  leave  the  scene  in  to  represent  a  less  significant  second  meeting 
in  the  play  of  Tzvelfth  Night.  For  if  he  had  composed  this  second  scene 
after  he  had  written  act  I.  scene  v,  it  is  scarcely  to  be  believed  that  he 
would  have  done  it  in  just  this  way. 

In  the  first  place,  the  style,  the  meter,  and  the  rhyme  in  the  lines  I 
have  indicated  seem  to  be  eminently  characteristic  of  Shakespeare's 
earliest  work.  I  do  not  mean  that  it  is  inferior ;  it  is  as  good  as  the  best 
of  the  original  version  of  Loves  Labour's  Lost  or  The  Comedy  of  Errors, 
— almost,  one  might  say,  as  anything  in  The  Tzvo  Gentlemen  of  Verona; 
indeed  it  is  good  enough,  Shakespeare  himself  must  have  felt,  to  be 
allowed  to  stand  in  TzvclftJi  Night;  but  it  looks  to  me  like  early  work 
just  the  same.  Moreover,  the  characters  of  Viola  and  Olivia  are  not  so 
fully  and  subtly  developed ;  we  miss  especially  the  buoyancy  and  whim- 
sicality of  Viola's  "skipping  dialogue"  wdiich  charmed  us  as  it  did  Olivia 
in  the  previous  interview.  But  what  has  really  convinced  me  is  the  curi- 
ous way  in  which  the  entire  material  of  this  scene  is  worked  over  and 
expanded  in  act  I,  scene  v.  Let  us  note  the  series  of  correspondences  and 
the  wonderful  superiority  with  which  the  points  are  handled  in  the  revised 
first  meeting  of  the  two  heroines. 

I  shall  not  pause  over  Viola's  giving  money  to  the  Clown  in  order 
to  gain  admittance  to  Olivia  (a  wholly  unnecessary  procedure  after  the 
former  meeting  and  the  episode  of  the  ring)  nor  contrast  this  with  her 
delightful  impudence  and  clamor  off  stage  on  the  previous  occasion ;  for 
there  is  nothing  in  the  scene  before  Olivia's  entrance  which  is  in  the 


11  New  Variorum  Twelfth  Night,  p.  147. 


<< 


love's  labour's  won"  51 


earlier  manner  and  style.  If  the  first  half  of  the  scene  belong^ed  to  the 
original  play,  I  think  it  must  have  been  rewritten.  I5ut  with  Olivia's 
entrance  the  comparison  and  contrast  between  the  two  scenes  becomes 
striking': 

Viola.  Most  excellent  accomplished  lady,  the  heavens  rain 
odours  on  you ! 

Sir  Andrciv.  That  youth's  a  rare  courtier.  "Rain  odours;" 
well. 

Viola.  My  matter  hath  no  voice,  lady,  but  to  your  own  most 
pregnant  and  vouchsafed  ear.     (Ill,  i,  95-lCO.) 

This  abrupt  and  bombastic  exordium  and  request  for  a  private  inter- 
view grows  in  the  revised  scene  from  five  lines  to  fifty : 

Viola.  Most  radiant,  exquisite,  and  unmatchable  beauty, — I 
pray  you,  tell  me  if  this  be  the  lady  of  the  house  .  .  . 

One  cannot  but  remember  the  delightful  progress  of  this  speech  and  those 

that  follow  through  the  entire  passage,  concluding, 

Viola.  It  alone  concerns  your  ear.  I  bring  no  overture  of  war, 
no  taxation  of  homage.  I  hold  the  olive  in  my  hand.  My  words 
are  as  full  of  peace  as  matter.  ...  To  your  ears,  divinity ;  to  any 
other's,  profanation.     (I,  v,  181-234.) 

Very  naturally,  upon  the  withdrawal  of  all  but  Viola  and  Olivia  in 
the  scene  which  I  am  treating  as  that  of  their  first  meeting  in  Love's 
Labour's  Won,  the  former  presents  her  compliments:  "My  duty,  madam, 
and  most  humble  service;"  and  the  latter  inquires,  "What  is  your  name?" 
In  I,  V,  her  question  is.  "What  is  your  parentage?" — a  more  important 
consideration  to  a  lady  who  finds  herself  suddenly  becoming  fascinated 
by  a  messenger.  It  will  be  said  at  once  that  Olivia  may  well  wait  for  the 
third  act  interview  before  making  the  less  significant  inquiry.  If  this 
were  not  so,  Shakespeare  would  never  have  allowed  it  to  stand  in  a  play 
so  carefully  put  together  as  Tzvclfth  Night.  My  point  is  merely  that  the 
question  is  quite  in  keeping  with  the  scene  as  I  am  endeavoring  to  pre- 
sent it.  Note,  now,  how  characteristic  of  Shakespeare's  earliest  manner 
is  the  dialogue  that  ensues : 

Vio.     Cesario  is  your  servant's  name,  fair  princess. 
OH.     My  servant,  sir!     Twas  never  merry  world 
Since  lowly  feigning  was  called  compliment. 
You're  servant  to  the  Count  Orsino,  youth. 

Vio.     And  he  is  yours,  and  his  must  needs  be  yours. 
Your  servant's  servant  is  your  servant,  madam. 

OH.     For  him,  I  think  not  on  him.     For  his  thoughts. 
Would  they  were  blanks,  rather  than  filled  with  me ! 

Vio.     Madam.  I  come  to  whet  your  gentle  thoughts 
On  his  behalf. 
And  then  notice  how  abruptly  the  verse  changes  when  Shakespeare  writes 


52  A    CONJECTURE   AS    TO 

in  the  reference  to  the  ring,  which  of  course  formed  no  part  of  the  original 
play.  After  the  clock  strikes  (line  140),  we  have  again  the  meter  and  the 
manner  of  the  older  drama,  the  scene  ending  with  a  series  of  couplets 
which  are  as  like  those  in  Shakespeare's  earliest  comedies  as  the  couplets 
in  All's  Well  are  unlike  them.  At  least,  where  opinion  is  all  we  have  to 
go  upon,  I  set  down  mine  for  what  it  may  be  worth. ^- 

In  the  revision  (still  assuming  that  my  conjecture  is  right),  Viola's 
cold  and  colorless  statement  of  her  mission,  "Madam,  I  come  to  whet  your 
gentle  thoughts  On  his  behalf,"  gives  place  to  her  exquisite  and  impas- 
sioned lines  beginning,  "If  I  did  love  you  in  my  master's  flame ;"  and 
Olivia's  bald  hint,  "But  would  you  undertake  another  suit,"  becomes  the 
subtly  ambiguous  "You  might  do  much,"  and  her  speaking  (as  we  learn 
later)  "in  starts,  distractedly."  In  like  manner,  her  strange  and  sudden 
"There  lies  your  way,  due  west,"  after  a  brief  and  inconclusive  interview, 
is  in  I,  V,  more  appropriately  given  to  Maria:  "Will  you  hoist  sail,  sir? 
Here  lies  your  way."  ^^  Viola's  vague  line,  shortly  after,  "That  you  do 
think  you  are  not  what  you  are."  becomes,  "I  see  you  what  you  are, 
you  are  too  proud ;"  and  her  reference  to  her  disguise,  said  for  the  en- 
joyment of  the  audience,  "Then  think  you  right.  I  am  not  what  I  am," 
we  find  in  her  more  pointedly  humorous  response,  "No,  my  profound 
heart ;  and  yet,  by  the  very  fangs  of  malice  I  swear,  I  am  not  that  I  play." 
Viola's  reference  to  a  wooing  at  cross  purposes,  due  to  her  disguise  (lines 
169-172),  is  reflected  somewhat  in  her  soliloquy  in  II,  ii,  after  she  has  re- 
ceived the  ring;  but  this  theme  had  been  elaborately  played  upon  by 
Rosalind  in  As  Yon  Like  It.    Olivia's  concluding  couplet. 

Yet  come  again  ;   for  thou  perhaps  mayst  move 
That  heart,  which  now  abhors,  to  like  his  love, 

is  worked  out  in  this  sending  of  the  ring  as  it  is  in  her  last  lines  to  Viola, 

Let  him  send  no  more, — 
Unless,  perchance,  you  come  to  me  again 
To  tell  me  how  he  takes  it.  .  .  . 

In  other  words,  every  essential  point  in  the  dialogue  in  act  III,  scene  i,  is 

covered  and  vastly  improved  upon  in  act  I,  scene  v;   and  unless  Shake- 


12  Fleay  considered  these  couplets  as  "surely  of  early  date." 

13  It  would  be  more  appropriate  still  if  it  were  given  to  Malvolio.  It  is 
marked  "Ma."  in  the  Folio,  which  might  stand  for  either;  but  it  sounds  like  Mal- 
volio, and  Viola's  answer  seems  almost  positively  to  prove  that  it  was  his  I 
believe,  therefore,  that  Malvolio's  Exit  in  the  Folio  is  a  mistake,  due,  perhaps,  to 
the  fact  that  Maria's  exit  (which  was  his  also)  is  not  marked.  Olivia  said  "Call 
in  my  gentlewoman,"  and  Malvolio  makes  the  lordly  announcement,  "Gentlewoman, 
my  lady  calls."  If  it  had  been  Shakespeare's  intention  to  send  Malvolio  out  (for 
no  particular  purpose,  apparently),  I  think  Olivia  would  have  said,  "Send  in  my 
gentlewoman,"  and  we  should  not  have  had  Malvolio's  line. 


"love's  labour's  won"  53 

speare  was  making  use  of  his  old  material  I  am  unable  to  understand 
why  he  should  have  repeated  his  ideas  and  in  no  way  advanced  the  action 
in  this  scene. 

I  do  not  find  in  Twelfth  Nis^ht  any  other  extended  passage  which 
seems  to  me  so  clearly  to  belong  to  an  earlier  version  of  the  drama;  but 
there  are  various  scenes  or  parts  of  scenes  which  remind  me  of  Shake- 
speare's earlier  work.  If  Shakespeare  did  revise  his  Love's  Labour's  Won 
for  a  Twelfth  Night  celebration,  he  must  have  added  much,  and  rewritten 
practically  all  of  the  old  material.  What  he  would  have  started  with 
would  be  the  Duke,  attended  by  his  lords,  V'alentine  and  Curio,  in  love 
with  the  Countess  Olivia,  who  also  had  her  lords  and  ladies  about  her,  but 
who  has  made  a  vow  of  seven  years'  seclusion,  during  which  time  she 
will  receive  no  suitors ;  so  much  is  quite  in  the  manner  of  Love's  Labour's 
Lost, — and  it  is  appropriate  that  this  time  the  lady  shall  be  the  one  to 
make  and  break  her  oath.  The  twins,  Viola  and  Sebastian,  inevitably 
mistaken  for  one  another,  each  with  his  friendly  sea  captain  to  render 
service, — this  is  in  the  spirit  of  The  Comedy  of  Errors, — and  one  cannot 
fail  to  notice  also  the  similarity  of  Antonio  and  Aegeon  in  their  relation 
to  the  reigning  Duke.  What  Shakespeare  would  have  added,  if  the  revi- 
sion of  Love's  Labour's  Lost  was  at  all  an  analogous  case,  would  be  Mal- 
volio  and  all  his  story,  and  perhaps  Sir  Toby  as  well ;  though  one  might 
as  justly  offer  Sir  Toby  as  Parolles  for  a  first  sketch  of  Falstaff."  Added 
also  would  be  the  pathos  and  poetry — and  the  satire ;  for  the  artificiality 
of  the  Duke's  love  making  in  Love's  Labour  s  Won  would  account  for  the 
obvious  sentimentality  of  the  Duke  in  Tzdfth  Night.  In  discovering  what 
scenes  belonged  to  the  former  play,  one  would  naturally  put  in  a  claim  for 
enough  of  II,  iii,  to  include  the  song  "O  mistress  mine,"  inasmuch  as  the 
song  is  like  Shakespeare  and  could  easily  belong  to  the  time  of  "Who  is 
Silvia?"  Its  publication  in  1599  has  caused  those  who  date  Twelfth 
Night  (as  we  all  wish  to)  as  late  as  1601  to  believe  that  an  old  song  was 
here  made  use  of.  It  is  some  gain  to  have  this  song  restored  to  its  right- 
ful owner.^^ 


!•*  "Dost  thou  think,  because  thou  art  virtuous,  there  shall  be  no  more  cakes 
and  ale?"  One  can  almost  hear  FalstafF  himself  saying  this.  Sir  Toby  as  we  have 
him,  however,  would  be  greatly  improved. 

^5  In  1599  also  came  Jonson's  reference  which  might  have  applied  to  Lore's 
Labour's  Won  (just  as  in  Bartholomew  Fair  he  takes  a  fling  at  the  early  tragedy 
of  Titus  Aitdronicus),  but  which  is  too  early  for  Twelfth  Sight:  "That  the  argu- 
ment of  his  comedy  might  have  been  of  some  other  nature,  as  of  a  duke  to  be  in 
love  with  a  countess,  and  that  countess  to  be  in  love  with  the  duke's  son,  and  the 
son  to  love  the  lady's  waiting-maid;  some  such  cross-wooing,  with  a  clown  to  their 
serving-man.  .  .  ."  {Every  Man  out  of  his  Humour,  III,  i).  But  I  do  not  feel 
that  this  reference  need  apply,  though  the  dates  now  make  that  possible. 


54  A    CONJECTURE    AS   TO 

Let  us  set  down  the  scenes  which  would  have  made  up  the  old  comedy 
of  Loir's  Labour's  Won  if  it  was  indeed  the  play  of  which  Twelfth  Night 
was  the  revision. 

ACT  I.  Scene  i.  Duke,  Curio,  and  other  lords.  The  Duke  is  in 
love  with  Olivia  (but  the  love  is  now  made  overtly  sentimental).  Valen- 
tine returns,  not  having-  been  admitted. 

Scene  ii.  Viola,  Captain,  and  Sailors  arrive  from  shipwreck.  They 
speak  of  Sebastian's  probable  death,  and  Viola  determines  to  serve  Duke 
Orsino  disguised  as  a  boy. 

Scene  iii.  Sir  Toby,  Sir  Andrew,  and  Maria.  Sir  Andrew  loves 
Olivia.  He  corresponds  to  Armado  in  being  the  comic  lover.  Little  of 
this  scene  (if  any)  need  belong  to  the  first  cast  of  the  play.  The  rest  of 
the  act  is  wholly  new. 

ACT  IL  Scene  i.  Antonio  and  Sebastian.  After  identifying  the 
latter  as  Viola's  brother,  we  learn  of  Antonio's  devotion  to  him  and  his 
determination  to  follow  him  to  Orsino's  court  in  spite  of  his  many  enemies 
there.  The  scene  is  mostly  in  prose  and  could  belong  wholly  to  the  old 
play. 

Scene  iii.  Sir  Toby  and  Sir  Andrew,  with  the  Clown's  song  "O 
mistress  mine." 

Scene  iv.  Viola,  as  Cesario,  sings  the  Duke  a  love  song  (not  "Come 
away,  death").    The  Duke  sends  her  to  woo  Olivia  for  him. 

ACT  in.  Scene  i.  Viola  goes  on  her  errand.  She  meets  Sir 
Andrew  and  others,  and  then  comes  the  interview  with  Olivia,  practically 
as  given  in  Twelfth  Night. 

Scene  iii.  Antonio  gives  Sebastian  his  purse  to  carry.  (The  verse 
here  is  not  greatly  different  from  that  of  the  Comedy  of  Errors.) 

Scene  iv.  Lines  221-237,  a  short  scene  between  Viola  and  Olivia, 
read  very  much  like  Shakespeare's  early  work.  From  Antonio's  entrance 
and  his  arrest  by  the  officers  we  have  the  old  story.  Antonio  mistakes 
Viola  for  Sebastian ;  and  though  he  mentions  Sebastian's  name,  Viola 
lets  him  go  without  the  least  inquiry.  That  palpable  improbability  would 
belong  to  the  earlier  writing. 

ACT  IV'.  Scene  i.  Sebastian,  the  Clown,  Sir  Andrew  and  Sir 
Toby.  They  mistake  Sebastian  for  Viola.  (Olivia  enters,  also  mistakes 
him  and  invites  him  to  come  with  her. 

Scene  iii.     Sebastian  goes  with  Olivia  and  the  Priest  to  be  married. 

ACT  V.  Scene  i.  The  unraveling  of  the  complication  follows  nat- 
urally as  it  is  given  until  we  come  to  the  mention  of  Alalvolio.  The  story 
is  completely  told  when  we  suddenly  learn  that  the  captain  who  has 
Viola's  "maid's  garments"  has  been  arrested  at  the  suit  of  Malvolio,  and 
consequently  the  latter  is  sent  for,  and  his  story  is  taken  up  and  com- 


"love's  labour's  won"  55 

pleted.  When  Malvolio  has  left  the  stage,  the  Duke  says,  quite  as  sud- 
denly, "He  hath  not  told  us  of  the  captain  yet,"  and  then  again  brings  the 
play  to  an  end. 

It  will  be  seen  from  this  synopsis  that  there  lies  imbedded  in  Twelfth 
Night  just  such  a  drama  as  Love's  Labour's  Won  might  well  have  been; 
and  this  is  something  which  can  by  no  means  be  said  of  All's  Well  that 
Ends  Well.  It  should  be  apparent  also  that  act  III,  scene  i,  takes  its 
place  naturally  in  the  scheme  of  the  original  drama  as  the  first  meeting 
of  Viola  and  Olivia;  and,  allowing  for  a  certain  amount  of  revision,  it 
reads  much  more  consistently  as  such  than  as  the  brief  and  anti-climactic 
second  meeting  in  the  drama  as  it  stands.  It  may  be  argued,  too,  that  the 
awkward  introduction  of  Malvolio  at  the  end  of  the  play  looks  like  patch- 
work ;  though  Shakespeare's  carelessness  with  regard  to  his  endings 
must  be  taken  into  account. 

I  should  not  call  attention  to  the  peculiar  appropriateness  of  the  title 
Love's  Labour's  Won  to  the  story  of  Viola  if  it  had  not  been  so  often 
commented  upon  as  applying  particularly  well  to  the  story  of  Helena. 
The  title,  as  has  been  said,  fits  almost  any  comedy, — The  Taming  of  the 
Shrew  being  a  rare  exception.  But  that  Viola  wins  by  failing  in  her  mis- 
sion on  behalf  of  Orsino, — that  Orsino  wins,  but  not  the  lady  whom  he 
sought, — that  Olivia  wins,  but  not  the  youth  she  thought  she  was  marry- 
ing,— all  these  losings  of  love's  labors  atoned  for  by  a  better  winning  in 
each  case  would  give  just  such  point  to  the  title  as  the  young  Shakespeare 
would  delight  in.  And  if  this  play  was  revised  for  a  Twelfth  Night  cele- 
bration, in  so  thorough  a  fashion  as  to  demand  a  new  name  for  the  old 
story  of  Love's  Labour's  Won, — it  was  natural  enough  for  Shakespeare 
simply  to  call  it  Twelfth  Night — or  What  You  Will. 


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